London, England — Featherweight Lerone Murphy finally returned to the Octagon this past weekend at UFC 286, where he was victorious over late step-in opponent and former LFA champion Gabriel Santos.
Originally, Murphy was scheduled to take on fellow Brit Nathaniel Wood, but due to injury, Wood pulled out of the bout. For a while it looked as though Murphy’s bad luck would continue and he wouldn’t find a late notice opponent, but with just over a week to go, Santos accepted the call.
Despite how close the fight was, Murphy picked up the victory maintaining his undefeated status. Nathaniel Wood though is of the opinion that Gabriel Santos won the fight and that “they [judges] gave that to Lerone.”
Congrats Gabriel santos on a great win
— Nathaniel Wood (@TheProspectMMA) March 19, 2023
In the post fight scrum, Lerone Murphy reacted to Wood’s comments, saying “Where’s Nathaniel Wood? Is he under here (looking under table)? Because he’s running from me. Listen, the next UK card in July or whenever it is, if I don’t get a number next to my name give me Nathaniel Wood and I’ll break him.”
Nathaniel Wood recently made his way up to the featherweight division to try and become more active as he was struggling to do that in the 135lb division.
When asked by Cageside Press at the post fight scrum what his reaction was to Nathaniel Wood’s tweet, he told us “Nathaniel Wood can f*ck off, sorry about my language but he’s not here, where is he. He booked the fight and pulled out four weeks ago why’s he tweeting about me. Tell him to come and fight me then and make the fight. Don’t pull out.”
Watch the full UFC 286 post-fight press conference with Lerone Murphy above.
