In the main event of this weekend’s UFC Fight Night, former welterweight champion Tyron Woodley will meet rising contender Gilbert Burns as both look to inject themselves into welterweight title contention.

Although he is no longer the champion, Woodley has faced some of the biggest names in the sport and his opponent is just cracking the upper-tier of opponents although he’s doing so with incredible momentum behind him. After Burns ran through Demain Maia with a first-round win back in March, he put himself in position for a fight against Woodley but the former champion isn’t ready to compare their past.

In an interview with ESPN, Woodley said there is no way that anyone should compare the records between the two. Woodley notes his record against world class fighters compared to Burns who just picked up his most notable win over Maia in his last fight.

“If it’s a Conor fight or a Nate Diaz fight or something like that, now it’s a person who has more name recognition than myself, now that motivates me to try and capture some of those fans, that becomes a great motivating factor. In this situation it’s really just the performance itself. When you look at Gilbert Burns, his manager put something out saying fun fact, Gilbert is 9-3 and Tyron is 8-3, don’t ever compare his record to mine. I’m 9-3 against world class fighters, I never lost to somebody that wasn’t a world champion or wasn’t a world title challenger.

“You look at my resume Jake Shields, Rory MacDonald, Kamaru Usman, Nate Marquardt. So when you try to compare the victories you’ve had, wins and losses, they’re non-comparable because the quality of opponents are not even on the same stratosphere.”

There’s no denying the level of talent that Tyron Woodley has faced throughout his career but as he works to get back to the title, he doesn’t want anyone comparing his record to Burns’ record.

How do you see Tyron Woodley vs Gilbert Burns playing out?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/27/2020