UFC FIGHTERS RECALL OSCARS-LIKE FLUB
Woodley can feel for ‘ La La Land’
The black-tie world of the Academy Awards would seem to have little in common with the bloodied octagon of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. However, no one might be able to appreciate the whirlwind of emotions experienced by the casts of Moon
light and La La Land on Sunday night more than UFC stars Stephen Thompson and Tyron Woodley.
In November, Woodley was announced as the winner of the UFC welterweight title fight between the pair, before a scoring mix-up led to the result being changed to a majority draw a few minutes later.
“I was thinking the exact same thing,” Thompson said when asked about the Oscars gaffe in a telephone interview this week. “I was thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to us.’ ”
The coincidental timing of the weekend’s Dolby Theater debacle in which La La Land erroneously was named winner of best picture and left Oscars organizers redfaced was not lost on the fighters.
After their epic matchup at UFC 205, the pair are set to do it over again at UFC 209 in Las Ve- gas on Saturday, battling for the belt once more as the main event of the T-Mobile Arena card.
“To be honest with you, it went so fast,” Thompson said. “They announced (Woodley) as the winner, and I remember thinking in my head, ‘Wait a second, I know I did better than that.’ ”
The confusion arose because two judges had scored the bout as a 47-47 draw and a third had awarded it to Woodley 48-47. Under UFC regulations, the result given by the greater number of judges prevails, but announcer Bruce Buffer — reading from the sheet he was handed at ringside — had his own Warren Beatty moment by first crediting Woodley with the victory.
“I probably had the second, third and the fifth round,” Thompson said. “But as soon as I turned around, I had (UFC President) Dana White there (saying), ‘Hey, it is a draw, it’s a draw.’ It was kind of like the Oscars, but at least they didn’t wait for us to get five or 10 minutes into it and then come back and say it was a draw.
“There wasn’t enough time to actually think about what was going on because it happened so fast. It was even worse to Tyron, thinking he had won and then coming back and it was a draw.”
Thompson had indeed won Rounds 2, 3 and 5 on two of the judges’ cards, which would typically have been enough to have given him victory. However, one judge ruled he lost the first round heavily enough to warrant a 10-8 margin for Woodley, while another gave Woodley Round 4 by 10-8.
The repercussions for this weekend’s fight are significant. UFC legend Georges St-Pierre is returning to competition, setting up a potential blockbuster with Woodley or Thompson, and Conor McGregor — the biggest draw in mixed martial arts — has spoken about moving up to try to win a belt in a third weight class.
A victory Saturday and Woodley or Thompson, both of whom have spent much of their career in the shadows, could soon find themselves stepping onto the red carpet.
Thompson did not watch the Oscars live but made sure to catch up with video of the mix-up once he heard about it and sympathized with those involved.
“I had to go back to watching all the media stuff, people were taking about it, and it was pretty rough, man,” he said. “They waited halfway through the speech before they did anything about it. I was like, dadgum, for them to be such a high level and professional thing, how could they make such a small misread?”
Thompson hopes his bid for the gold has a happier ending.