Tyron Woodley, Stephen Thompson to rematch on March 4 at UFC 209 in Las Vegas

Until Monday afternoon, none of the UFC’s 10 reigning champions had a fight scheduled. But that changed quickly when UFC president Dana White confirmed to Yahoo Sports that welterweight champion Tyron Woodley will face Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson on March 4, in a rematch of their majority draw last year in New York.

Woodley retained his title with the draw at UFC 205. Two judges scored it 47-47, while the third had Woodley winning, 48-47. It was chosen as the Fight of the Night.

After a brief flirtation with a bout against his Fox Sports broadcast partner, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping, Woodley agreed to the rematch with Thompson on Monday, much to White’s delight.

“So close [and] sooooo good,” White said via text message of the first Woodley-Thompson bout.

Woodley said a fight with Bisping was closer to becoming reality than many people realized. They were talking on the night of UFC 207, as they were each discussing the possibility of fighting Georges St-Pierre.

“That all started with me and Bisping talking about fighting Georges St-Pierre and Bisping said, ‘Oh, my manager is close [to reaching a deal],’ ” Woodley said. “And I said, ‘No they’re not, because my manager is talking to him.’ We were kind of joking and I said, ‘We may have to fight to get that one.’ And he said, ‘Well, why don’t we just fight?’ I said alright, and I thought he was kidding, and he said it again. And I said, ‘Man, you realize I will fight you, for real?’ I didn’t know if he was serious, but when I realized he was, I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’ ”

They went so far as to speak to White about it, but White went on vacation in Hawaii and that stalled the momentum for the fight.

On Sunday, Thompson tweeted a link to a signed contract for a rematch with Woodley. That led to a back and forth between the two and, ultimately, the fight being made.

Woodley told Yahoo Sports Monday that he felt he’d won the first fight clearly.

“In any fights, there are opportunities to say, ‘I could have done this. I should have done this. I wish I would have done that,’ ” Woodley said. “You can do that all the time, but even with that, looking at the things I could have expounded upon, I still won the fight. I had the only takedown. I had the control of the ground and pound. I had the only knockdown. I had the only submission attempts. He had the only cuts. He was the only person in harm’s way. He landed some strikes, but he never put me in a position where we thought the referee was going to jump in and save me. He was there quite a few times.”