"You think cardio gon' beat me ? Let me see you put yo chin on the treadmill" - Covington v Woodley post fight armchair analysis.

I did boxing 3 years ago and have a white belt in jiu jitsu. This won't stop me from talking like an expert on this. I'm going to make bold claims and I can't be called out because I don't have comments turned on.

A lot of people have been calling Woodley shot after his last performance, but in my view he was doing really well in this fight. This fight was Orthodox v Southpaw, a battle of the right straight and left straight respectively. Similar to the fight with Till where the fight ending sequence started with Woodley countering Till's left coming in with a right hand.

Early in the fight Woodley was doing well, he had Covington on the back foot and was pressuring him, controlling the centre of the cage. He quickly found himself with his back to his fence. Woodley seems to not have any lateral movement, he always gets backed up to the fence and tries to swing an overhand. Woodley would keep moving back until he felt the cage on his back.

After a takedown, Woodley got into half butterfly guard with an overhook, transitioned to full guard, got his back to the cage and used that to stand up. 

Throughout the whole fight he never threw his left hand at all. Not even to jab, only using it to parry some of Covington's punches and throwing feints. Colby knew this and wouldn't move any time Woodley tried to feint a jab. His mythical right hand however had Colby backing up.

 

Especially in round 2 (Woodley's best round), a flick of his right should would have Covington galloping back with his guard up. His leg was still there, open for the low kick but Tyron didn't go for it.

 

Here he parries the straight and counters with a leg kick. The common theme of the fight was Woodley doing something that works well once and never doing it again.

 

At around 2 minutes in, Colby pressured Wooddley to the fence and shot in for a double leg. Woodley sprawled and got underhooks in (with his back to the cage). He then got a single leg of his own, ran the pipe and took Covington down. He got a front headlock position on Covington, who then stood back up and took Woodley down but it was impressive from Woodley. The front headlock is a powerful position, John Danaher doing a whole series on it. Brian Ortega and Tony Ferguson have secured multiple finishes from this position. 

In my MMA group chat I was calling for Woodley to throw a superman punch every time he got backed up to the cage. A strategy that has been used before in a heavyweight fight that I can't find. The punch landed clean over Covington's guard and in Woodley fashion he never threw it again.

Chael put it perfectly, Woodley has an offensive problem and has become too gun-shy.