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#2 UFC Welterweight division: Tyron Woodley vs Vicente Luque

After a poor 2020, does former UFC champ Tyron Woodley (left) have anything left in the tank?

It’s hard to believe quite how far Tyron Woodley has fallen since losing his UFC Welterweight title to Kamaru Usman, but it does make sense. ‘The Chosen One’ is now 38 years old and reached that dangerous decade threshold in his career in 2019.

So the question is, do his 2020 UFC losses to Gilbert Burns and Colby Covington suggest he’s simply got nothing left to offer? Or were they a case of bad stylistic matches?

In the fight with Covington, the answer would probably be in the affirmative. Woodley’s takedown threat wasn’t really there against a wrestler of Colby Covington’s pedigree.

Given Covington’s big strength is pressuring an opponent – something Woodley never deals well with if he can avoid a big counter – it was always a tricky-sounding match for him.

Burns, however, seemed like a decent match for the former UFC champion. The wild striking style of Burns, primarily a grappler, felt as if it’d play into Woodley’s hands – and yet it didn’t at all.

Woodley was instead highly passive; he didn’t really attack Burns and ended up being badly beaten down.

Luque is an interesting fight for Woodley, though. While Luque isn’t as good in any area as Burns and lacks the wrestling chops of Covington, he’s probably more aggressive than both.

‘The Silent Assassin’ is 12-3 in the UFC, and only one of his wins has come via decision. Every other opponent he has faced has been finished off, usually in a violent fashion. Basically, if Luque gets you hurt, it’s probably game over.

So the question here is whether Woodley will remain passive and continue his penchant to back straight up into the fence. If he does that, then Luque will swarm him, probably hurt him and finish him off properly – becoming the first man to do so in the UFC.

Can Woodley win this fight? He definitely does have a couple of options. Firstly, he could look to land a big counter on Luque as he comes in. However, that plan hasn’t worked for him recently at all and could likely cost him his fights with Burns and Covington.

Woodley’s other option would be to take Luque down and hold him there. ‘The Silent Assassin’ has had issues with this gameplan in the past, most notably against Michael Graves and Leon Edwards, the two men responsible for Luque’s first two UFC losses.

However, it’s notable that Luque does have a venomous ground game, and the Edwards fight did come four years ago.

With all things considered, particularly Woodley’s downward spiral, Luque via TKO looks like the most likely outcome in this fight.

The Pick: Luque via second-round TKO.