In just over 24 hours, the UFC will take over New York City’s hallowed Madison Square Garden with UFC 205. The card stands out as one of the best, if not the best, in UFC history.
Atop the lineup sits a lightweight title fight between divisional king Eddie Alvarez, and reigning featherweight champ Conor McGregor. If McGregor comes out on top in this bout, he’ll become the first fighter in UFC history to hold to belts in two weight classes simultaneously. The co-main event, meanwhile, will see new welterweight champ Tyron Woodley attempt the first defense of his title against streaking karate specialist Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.
In the buildup to this massive card, McGregor and Woodley have spent ample time together, crossing paths at various media events. Because McGregor’s two most recent fights occured in the welterweight division, both he and Woodley have fielded questions about the possibility of their fighting sometime down the road. While this potential showdown resides purely in the realm of the hypothetical for the moment, both McGregor and Woodley acknowledged that they wouldn’t be opposed to it in theory.
Shortly after the UFC 205 early weigh-ins, which saw both Woodley and McGregor successfully make weight, the two fighters crossed paths for an encounter that gave us the faintest preview of a potential showdown between them.
You can watch that brief encounter at the top of this post. While it’s admittedly hard to determine just what is going on in this clip, it certainly does look a bit tense.
In a Twitter response to Ariel Helwani, Woodley offered up his take on the encounter. Though the welterweight king assured this run-in with McGregor was far from the start of MMA’s next great grudge match, he also explained that it wasn’t particularly friendly.
I said what's up then he tried to flex. Quickly he realized it was a NO FLEX ZONE💪🏼🚫Pretty much made him say what's up! JS
