Lloyd Woodard: What a Difference a Day Can Make
“An overnight sensation” is a saying often used in sports to describe an athlete that has come out of relatively nowhere to bust onto the scene literally overnight. Think Jon Jones after he submitted Jake O’Brien at UFC 100 or Ronda Rousey’s Strikeforce debut against Sarah D’alelio. After the quarterfinal round of the lightweight tournament at Bellator 62, you can add the name Lloyd Woodard to that list.
Participating in his second lightweight tournament Woodard took on the Patricky Freire in the quarterfinals. Both fighters lost to Michael Chandler in the season four tournament as Chandler would go onto defeat Eddie Alvarez to become the new Bellator lightweight champion.
Headlining the Bellator 62 card, Woodard and Freire went toe to toe with both fighters rocking the other in the opening frame. Things continued the same in round two but the fight would go to the canvas after Woodard stunned Freire with a knee. From there the man nicknamed “cupcake” would grab Freire’s arm and muscle a kimura submission against the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
The biggest win it Woodard’s career advanced him into the semifinals once again, since the big win, Woodard has been incredibly busy and it has nothing to do with training for his Bellator 66 semifinal opponent, Rick Hawn. Woodard has been doing interviews and radio shows at a frantic pace since the win and is enjoying every moment of it. The Montana Mountain man has become an overnight sensation.
Woodard took some time out of his busy appointment schedule to talk with MMA Valor to give us the lowdown on just how many times his watched Rocky, what he’d be doing if not fighting and of course all the fighting stuff.
Man you’re Mister Popular these days huh?
Yeah man, its crazy how things can just blow up over a weekend. All the interviews get me all amped up too.
Rumor has it the Montana Mountain man is heading to Oregon?
Yea, I bought a trailer so I can put my stuff in cause Chael is getting ready for Anderson Silva and I’d love to be on that camp. That’s where I’m going to go to train from Rick Hawn. I went up there for a month with Pat Healy for the fight with Pitbull.
Your bout with Pitbull was another exciting fight. What was your game plan because it seemed once the bell rang any game plans either of you had vanished?
Well I kind of knew he had a lot of pride in his hands and I have a lot of pride in mine and I thought my hands were better. I pretty much told everyone that I was going to go out there and stand with him and I think he knew that. Once he realized that I was fearless and fought with a lot of heart I kind of got the upper hand and got him with that knee.
Have you ever been in a boring fight?
Probably but I don’t remember them, maybe in one of my amateur fights.
For a guy that comes out throwing leather you’ve finished the majority of your fights via submission. How would you describe your fighting style?
Ah sneaky. Man I just try to finish fights and fight hard. I fight all heart and nothing else. I just try to beat the guy as badly as I can.
The loss to Michael Chandler was the first defeat of your career and one you obviously want to avenge. What did you learn from the loss?
Don’t get out worked another day in your life man. He out worked me that day, he’s a really tough kid. I thought I had him in the second round and then in that third round he just worked harder than me. I can’t let someone work harder than me out there like that; I need to work harder than anyone in this business. I’m upset about it and he’s on my #1 list of people I want to kick ass, there is a lot of people on that list and Bellator is giving me the opportunity to fight them all. It’s not just him I want to fight Eddie Alvarez man, anyone that is on top of their game.
Next up for you is Rick Hawn at Bellator 66. How do you see the fight going?
Hey you got to do what you got to do to win and I’m going to do whatever I can to win the fight. He knows I’m coming after him man, that I’m coming for war and I’m swinging. If he throws me down I’ve proven that I can get back up really fast and try to get you back, maybe even throw you across the ring. I fight with emotion man.
How many times have you seen Rocky?
I give a real number of about 60 and I’d say that I probably saw it 20 times while in jail. It came on Spike TV and I’m watching the Rocky Marathon all day so I’d saw about 20 of those times was then.
Which one is your favorite?
It’s was Rocky 4 man, he ended communism and he was shredded for that one. That was the believable one man.
What’s your second favorite Movie?
I’m into Zombie movies like the walking dead but I also watch a bunch of series too. I’m an easy guy to sell because I’ll DVR all that stuff. That’s how I get fat man; I’ll get up to 199 lbs. watching everything on TV.
If you could fight any one person, who would it be?
Arnold Schwarzenegger like right went he was doing Conan and stuff because he was all big and stuff there. I’d have this whole thing of me coming out of the mountains like just being a mountain man from Montana and then I’d just beat the living shit out of him.
If you weren’t a fighter what would you be doing?
I would be a trail worker. I love trail work, that’s actually what I was kind of getting into it like want I wanted to fight more. I love going out in the trails here in Montana and I was on a trail crew and we went out and fixed trails and built new ones. That’s really fun work and its fun to get out really deep in the woods, camp out and be in the mountains. Really just give back to nature and I don’t know have fun man.
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