Tennis

Tyron Woodley has never had much of a problem talking about what’s on his mind - especially when it comes to fellow UFC fighters. So when Jon Jones was charged with battery over an alleged incident in a strip club in April, it was expected that Woodley would weigh in on things eventually.

On a recent episode of his TMZ Sports show, The Hollywood Beatdown, T-Wood took the conversation in an unexpected direction, and somehow roped Conor McGregor into things: (transcription via MMA News)

“We gonna act like Conor doesn’t do that every week? And we still want to put him on every fight card; he’s the biggest star. The second Jon Jones does something…”

“I’m defending the fact that we selectively throw people under the bus. Conor has done way worse things than Jon, and he’s glorified and praised as some Scarface of our sport. So I’m not gonna be too hard on Jon (when) I don’t even know the details.”

He is clear that he’s not blindly supporting Jones though:

“I’m not gonna give him a pass, either, because it ain’t my job to give the pass out. All I’m saying is this: Let’s get all the details first, but let’s not forget there’s a lot of bullsh-t that go on in our sport that we glorify.”

Woodley (19-4-1, 9-3-1 UFC) had been scheduled to return against Robbie Lawler, but was forced out of the bout with an injury. The former UFC welterweight champion remains on the sidelines.

©Bloodyelbow

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum believes the reason why IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. isn’t fighting his guy WBO champ Terence Crawford in a big pay-per-view match is because his adviser Al Haymon has no confidence in Errol that he can win the fight. Arum says he understands that, given that he would do the same thing if he had a big name guy that he didn’t believe could win a fight against another talented fighter.

Arum says Crawford deserves 50-50 purse split for Spence fight

Top Rank boss Arum says he’s ready to make the Crawford vs. Spence fight as soon as possible, as long as Errol’s adviser Haymon of Premier Boxing Champions is willing to agree to a 50-50 purse spit. That’s something that Arum may not be able to get though, because Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) has already shown that he’s a bigger draw than Crawford with his recent successful pay-per-view fight against Mikey Garcia.

The fight brought in over 400,000 buys on Fox Sports PPV. In contrast, Crawford’s two ventures into PPV against Amir Khan and Viktor Postol were dismal failures. The Crawford-Khan fight is said to have done little more than 200,000 buys on ESPN PPV. Spence, 29, will be fighting WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter (30-2-1, 17 KOs) next on September 28 on Fox Sport Pay-Per-View. If that match does huge numbers a well, that’s going to make it even tougher for the Spence vs. Crawford fight to get made. If Arum continues to stubbornly talk about wanting a 50-50 split for his fighter Crawford, he’s going to ruin the chances of that match ever getting made. Crawford is already 32, and that’s not young for a welterweight.

Terence needs the fight with Spence

Crawford’s days are numbered as an elite level fighter. Once Crawford’s hand speed takes a hit, he’ll have nothing to fall back on other than his gimmicky switch hitting that he does. You can argue that Crawford’s constant changing of stances doesn’t effect his fights, because he’s better when he’s fighting out of his orthodox right-handed stance. The casual fans are the ones that impressed with Crawford’s switch-hitting gimmick that he uses. It doesn’t help him win, because he’s already beating his opponents when he’s fighting right-handed.

Arum says Spence would be in danger of losing to Crawford

“For Haymon, it was a win-win for Andy Ruiz to go over and do that fight on DAZN [against Anthony Joshua], because Andy Ruiz wasn’t a marquee guy on PBC, so it was a win-win for him,” said Arum to Fighthub. “The question of whether he takes a marquee guy, which Errol certainly is, and puts him with Crawford, even though his network and ESPN would share the pay-per-view distribution, that’s another thing. Because there he takes a marquee guy and he’s in danger of losing, and then he hurts himself.

The way Spence and Crawford looked in their recent fights, Errol would ave to be viewed as the favorite to win that fight. He’s bigger, stronger, and can do all the little gimmicky things that Crawford can do.

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Floyd Mayweather has weighed in on the Justin Bieber and Tom Cruise fight. Earlier this month, the Baby hitmaker wrote a playful tweet where he joked about taking on the 57-year-old in a boxing match.

Despite him writing the status as a laugh, the star has latched onto his post, and has since trolled the Mission: Impossible actor over the Bottle Cap Challenge.