Woodley: ‘Big Brother’ Masvidal Beats Colby

Tyron Woodley knows a thing or two about Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal.

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 272 on Mar. 5, 2022, live from Las Vegas, Nevada will be headlined by the heated rivalry that is Covington vs. Masvidal. The former friends and teammates have gone back and forth for years since splitting and they will finally come to a head. Along their journey, they each had interactions with Woodley as a teammate, and in Covington’s case, an opponent.

“I feel like Masvidal is going to win because Masvidal is always big brother,” Woodley told MMA Junkie. “Once you have big brother syndrome over someone, I feel like you can’t really shake that unless you have a big breakout moment and you can consistently keep up. There’s a couple of guys that I used to wrestle and they would always beat me. Then I would beat them one time and I just f—king got a little cocky and I just started beating them consecutively. That don’t happen very often.

“I don’t think Colby had enough time fighting at the highest level in the gym with Masvidal to have had that moment. Whenever he started getting to the point where he started talking enough to get himself in position, he had to leave the gym. They weren’t even training together anymore. So I don’t think he had a large enough victory in the gym.”

Masvidal and Covington are both coming in fresh off title rematch losses to champion Kamaru Usman. If you exclude their recent encounters with “The Nigerian Nightmare,” both men are unbeaten dating back to 2017 for Masvidal and 2015 for Covington.

Letting their emotions and thoughts be known has never been a problem for either top 170-pound Welterweight contender. So with all the volatility involved, Woodley believes it would be best to keep things in check.

“Masvidal just needs to … keep his emotions and not turn it into where he just wants to fight him and hurt him and try to embarrass him — just really use what he does best,” Woodley said. “He has the best boxing, I feel like, in MMA right now. I feel like his hand speed is crazy. His ability to work the body is nuts. Colby Covington does not like body shots. I knew it. Why I didn’t go there more often, I don’t know. Masvidal knows it. He gave me some tips on it. I think he’s just going to work him to the body. Colby has to go and take him down a million times.”

Speaking of boxing, Woodley has since taken to the ring following his UFC career with two losses to Jake Paul. Whether or not Woodley will give the sport another shot remains to be seen.