Tyron Woodley has admitted he chose not to knockout Jake Paul in the pair's meeting earlier this year - though it's not due to a 'no-knockout' clause in the contract.
The former UFC star returns to the boxing ring this weekend for a rematch against Paul following his previous loss in Cleveland, stepping-up after Tommy Fury's withdrawal.
Fury pulled out of the fight due to a broken rib and a bacterial chest infection, leading to Woodley to get the rematch he's called for ever since his loss.
Since that previous fight, there has been continued claims that Paul puts clauses into the contract of his opponents preventing a knockout - something which has since been rebuffed.
A lot of the accusations stemmed around a moment in the first fight where Woodley had Paul on the ropes but did not go for the knockout, with the former now admitting he chose not to make the final blow.
“My shoulder was f***ing sore. I ain’t going to lie," he said on the MMA Hour ahead of his rematch in Florida this weekend.
"I wanted to [stop Paul], but my shoulder was swollen before the fight and I was just kind of swinging on pure thug energy from MMA, not just giving a hell.
“When you watch the punch, I punched him, he sprung off the ropes and he went back into my arm. So it kind of hyperextended my elbow on my shoulder so at that point my moneymaker was at jeopardy.
"So I had to try and walk him down, make him punch so I could punch straight shots. They were straight shots off of his punches, very similar to what I had to do against Demian Maia when I tore my labrum in that fight.
“I couldn’t throw looping overhand rights because it made me feel like my shoulder was in jeopardy. So my left arm and my right arm and my shoulder, they was just throbbing like a motherf***er."
