Tyron Woodley says home town Ferguson riots 'terrible, embarrassing'

UFC welterweight contender Tyron Woodley (14-3) has just signed on to fight Kelvin Gastelum (10-0) at UFC 183 in Las Vegas, so he now embarks on the training camp journey of single-mindedly focusing on preparing himself for battle. However, as a Ferguson, MO native, Woodley also has his mind on the embattled town he grew up in, still lives near and still loves.

Walking around his old neighborhood in a recent video feature (below), Woodley lamented the recent riots that burned parts of his city to the ground, in the wake of a Missouri grand jury's decision last week to not indict the Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed unarmed 18 year-old Michael Brown. 

"This is terrible. This is embarrassing. You can smell it, like it just burned. I knew the owners of this place. They're good people. Good community people," Woodley said.

"This is my city. This is specifically my city, and I'm outraged. I live right down the street. I used to walk down here, sweep up some hair, so I could get a haircut, make some extra money. This was the spot. This was the hangout spot. There was a lot of good energy here."

The American Top Team fighter says that, growing up, it would have never occurred to he and his friends to take part in something like store looting. Woodley is proud of the peaceful protesters in his city, but says the rioting cast a shadow over those efforts.

"We didn't have the idea that we had to get into trouble to have fun," he remembered.

"I hate seeing it, I hate watching it. More importantly, I hate people that don't understand the environment - how small Ferguson is, how it's really a sense of community and, you know, it's a good place. We shouldn't have been looting and rioting, tearing up our own city. I'm ashamed of the people that are looting and rioting and busting holes and burning down buildings. They make it look bad for the people that are peacefully protesting."

Though the University of Missouri alumnus isn't one to get emotional, the impact of walking through his home town while it still smoldered was a bit too much. "This is terrible. This is embarrassing. You can smell it, like it just burned," he said.

"I knew the owners of this place. They're good people. Good community people...I'm not an emotional guy. I hardly cry at funerals. But I had to go in my closet for a second, and start praying for what have we come to as a society. Martin Luther King said 'Let's not make noise, let's make a difference.'"