Woodley wants Bisping vs. GSP winner before next title defense

Tyron Woodley's investment in UFC 217's main event practically rivals that of the headliners themselves.

The UFC welterweight champ will be watching intently when Michael Bisping defends his middleweight crown against Georges St-Pierre on Nov. 4, having issued a friendly challenge to Bisping earlier this year and seeing a potential date with St-Pierre shot down following his own panned title bout against Demian Maia at UFC 214 in July.

Once he's recovered from the shoulder injury he sustained in his five-round dud with Maia, Woodley aims to take on the winner of UFC 217's closer, and then resume his reign in a welterweight division teeming with worthy contenders.

"Win, lose, or draw, I’m gonna want to fight the winner of that fight, Bisping or Georges," Woodley said recently on "The Morning Wood Show," according to MMANYTT's Damon Martin. "Then I’m still gonna want to come back and see all this fresh new talent in the welterweight division and I’m gonna want to show them a lesson too."

The 170-pound king's campaign for a date with GSP began moments after he KO'd Robbie Lawler to win the strap at UFC 201, only for St-Pierre to sign on for what will mark his middleweight debut. Woodley has since accused the welterweight great of ducking him, although he's still aiming to prove he's a more polished version of the former champ.

"I think I’ve surpassed him," Woodley said. "He was a person I looked up to but skill-for-skill, mindset, explosion, power, wrestling ability, timing, strategy, all those things, I feel like I’ve surpassed Georges and that’s why I want to go out there to fight him and prove it."

Whether Woodley's words prove to be just that and nothing more remains to be seen, but UFC president Dana White, for one, has already anointed the winner of a December bout between Lawler and Rafael dos Anjos the next challenger to the 35-year-old's throne.