Mizzou Hall of Fame Feature: Tyron Woodley
11/14/2019 3:00:00 PM | General, Wrestling
Former Tiger Style great has had one of MMAs most successful careers
Legacy can be measured in many ways; victories; championships; title belts. Tyron Woodley's Mizzou legacy comes down to two words: Tiger Style.
"I was actually a part of creating Tiger Style," Woodley said on helping Mizzou head coach Brian Smith establish his Tiger Style mantra. "My roommate and buddy Jeremy Spates, we really invented and defined what Tiger Style meant. Tiger Style in 2000, it meant we out work everybody, no matter who; Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa. We didn't care who had the most money, the biggest budget, the nicest wrestling shoes. Work ethic and work was our only option. We chose to outwork the entire country. So Tiger Style became a mindset, it became a way we lived by."
When Woodley arrived in Columbia in the early 2000s, Smith's storied program was in its adolescence. Mizzou wrestling had yet to produce a conference champion. Woodley changed that.
"I said, 'I want to be a national champion, I want to win a Big 12 title because these are things that no one had done before. It seemed unattainable at one point in time but I just really stayed focused," Woodley said. "I really just put my mind to it, and if you tell me I can't do something, that's just going to make me want to do it even more. When I went out there and showed the other Tigers it's possible, you started to see a trickle effect. Guys started coming in and winning titles their freshman year and being four-time title holders and then going on to win NCAA championships. I was one of the trailblazers of the sport at Mizzou.
Stops on that trail included a Big 12 championship in 2003, the program's first, and All-American honors in 2003 and again in 2005. Fueled by the determination to lead, Woodley took the skills he honed in Columbia from the matt to the cage, winning the UFC welterweight championship.
"In mixed martial arts, the fight always begins on your feet, so you got to have some striking, but once the fight gets to the canvas, I've been at huge advantage in my career because of my ability to know where I'm at and have the sense of awareness," Woodley said. "In wrestling, no one is telling you what move they're about to do. You kind of have to feel their body language. If they level change, drop down, you got to assume they're maybe going for the leg and you have to not overreact because it's a lot of faking and stuttering and attempts to try to psych you out to open you up for the actual takedown that they need. Just having that mindset has helped me in mixed martial arts because when people are doing the same things, I'm very reactionary, I'm very ready, I'm very prepared. So when I cross those over, I just add a little different technique to it and it's very helpful.
With all his success in the world of MMA, the St. Louis native never forgets where it all started, and the standard for Mizzou Wrestling that he helped set.
"We've been able to secure over 100 victories and win the first Big 12 Championship in school history, be an All-American twice and be in the NCAA [Championships] three times," Woodley said. "It was something that a lot of people hadn't done at the time. Now it's become the norm. It gave me the extra pressure that I needed, and I delivered."
"I'm so proud of Tyron and everything that he has accomplished," Mizzou wrestling head coach Brian Smith said. "In a lot of ways, he laid the foundation for all of the values that our program embodies today. He worked extremely hard to achieve all that he has, and the entire program watches and supports him in everything that he does. He embraced what Tiger Style was all about, and that helped shape him into the athlete he is today. We are so incredibly proud of him."
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Woodley is part of the 2019 Mizzou Athletics Hall of Fame class. He is one of six outstanding former University of Missouri athletic figures who have been selected for induction into Mizzou's Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame. They will represent the 29th induction class since the Hall's inception in 1990.
The class will be formally inducted Fri., Nov. 15, in a ceremony and celebration to be held that evening in Columbia. The group will also be recognized at the Mizzou Football home game the next day against Florida.
Tickets for the reception can be purchased through http://www.tsfmizzou.com/halloffame. If fans have questions, please mail (flakerl@missouri.edu) or call the Tiger Scholarship Fund office at (573) 882-0704.
