{"id":29688,"date":"2026-09-25T02:44:47","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T02:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=29688"},"modified":"2026-09-25T02:44:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T02:44:47","slug":"stephen-thompson-swan-song-at-ufc-334-prayed-for-by-ex-foe-from-msg-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=29688","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Thompson swan song at UFC 334 prayed for by ex-foe from MSG classic"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Trending:<\/span>Paddy Pimblett provides an update on his next UFC fight<\/p>\n

Stephen Thompson is getting his wish for a retirement fight in Madison Square Garden and this was something that a prior opponent of his prayed for. The fighter in question also had a classic UFC welterweight title fight with him inside of MSG.<\/p>\n

The combatant in question is Tyron Woodley, who was asked for his thoughts on \u2018Wonder Boy\u2019 having a specific retirement wish, prior to Thompson\u2019s fight with Charles Radtke being confirmed for UFC 334, Woodley said [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/em>],<\/p>\n

\u201cWonder Boy is my brother, man. He was the toughest. He was the toughest training camp I ever had. I had to bring in some people that was from my era, Sage Northcutt and Raymond Daniels and Avery Plowden and Chris Spang. Those four guys collectively brought four different things to the table. Chris was more of a MMA well-rounded guy, but he had the karate, sport fighting background.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRaymond Daniels was a guy that came from the same background, the only guy that really successfully ever beat Wonder Boy. He also did MMA. Plowden was the current champion in the sport that they came from. Sage Northcutt was kind of like the hybrid where he was just like the genetically made person that\u2019s like just zero body fat and just cardio for days. I never really won a round against Raymond. It took me weeks to win anything against Sage outside of the wrestling and grappling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to wear taekwondo chest pads and body protectors or he would have broke my ribs with sidekicks. So, I put myself in the most grueling training camp and it was just so mentally frustrating not to understand it. But, I learned that I understood what he would do if I got passed his original, initial, preliminary attack. Most people never made it past that attack. So, what happened if he missed a step off sidekick? What is he going to do next?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe going to do a spinning and back kick. What happens if he do this and and I get passed, hey, he\u2019s going to do this. So, I learned the mindset of them, how they train. Had I not done that training camp, I spent a fortune. I think I spent six figures on payment, training, traveling, flights, food, diet, coaches, to be able to beat him twice. That had I not done that, he would have beat me. I think it was close. It was close with me doing all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Stephen Thompson carries himself like Khabib and GSP, per Woodley<\/h2>\n

Further delving into his broader history with Stephen Thompson from their days as opposing competitors to being co-stars today, Woodley continued [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/em>],<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if I didn\u2019t do any of that? I just went in there cocking like, \u201cAh, f**k that karate s**t. Imma beat his ass. I probably would have lost, you know what I mean? So, I would love to see him go out there. I would have loved to see him get that title. Just because I felt like when I was at the top, he was so close to me. He was right there. I had him wrong, man. I had him read wrong and I\u2019ve apologized since. We did a movie, Road House 2 together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked like we got to do some re-shoots, so we\u2019re going to be back out in London again together. I really got to know him on a whole different level. He\u2019s just a beautiful human being, inside and out, man. Like the same way Khabib [Nurmagomedov] and them are disciplined, that\u2019s a bushido spirit of a martial artist but his spirit as a martial artist is so pure. It\u2019s like Georges St. Pierre all over again. I\u2019m just delighted every time I\u2019m around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great martial artist. He\u2019s a great person. Yeah, I want to see him walk away however he want that. If it\u2019s in Madison Square; it\u2019s crazy because my screen saver on my computer behind me is Time Square. All I\u2019m doing is watching it as we talk. Yeah, if that\u2019s the way he want to walk away, I pray that the UFC can make that happen and it aligns with whatever they got planned. Yeah, he\u2019s a solid dude.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM<\/p>\n


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Trending:Paddy Pimblett provides an update on his next UFC fight Stephen Thompson is getting his wish for a retirement fight in Madison Square Garden and this was something that a prior opponent of his prayed for. The fighter in question also had a classic UFC welterweight title fight with him inside of MSG. The combatant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[4210,4522,1095,14277,223,632,9244,2938,42],"class_list":["post-29688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fighters","tag-classic","tag-exfoe","tag-msg","tag-prayed","tag-song","tag-stephen","tag-swan","tag-thompson","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}