One of MMA’s all-time greats is conceding to his division’s reality.
Demetrious Johnson has done it all in the sport and is inarguably the best to ever fight at 125 pounds. “Mighty Mouse” set the all-time consecutive UFC title defense record at 11 before he parted ways for ONE Championship to claim 135-pound gold. At 37, Johnson is essentially semi-retired but still largely considered one of the very best fighters at present in either of his two divisions.
Johnson’s old title was on the line at UFC 301 this past weekend in the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil main event. The hometown champion Alexandre Pantoja sought his second straight defense against Australia’s Steve Erceg. Despite a competitive battle, “Cannibal” remained on top by earning a unanimous decision over his challenger. However, Johnson was disappointed with the build, or lack thereof, ahead of the event.
“Not every single fight card — not even in Bellator, PFL, ONE Championship, UFC, you name it — not every single one of them are going to be absolute bangers,” Johnson said on his YouTube channel. “Going into this fight, one, I want to start off saying that UFC didn’t even hold a f*cking press conference. Typically they always hold a press conference for pay-per-view events. This one, they didn’t. So, me and my producer were very shocked by that. Just not a whole lot of buzz surrounding this fight card.
“The biggest thing going into this: When flyweights headline a UFC pay-per-view, I’m one of ‘em, I headlined multiple UFC pay-per-views, was a champion for six years … It’s very frustrating when I think they have to just let the flyweights be a co-main event. Don’t let us be main event because we don’t drive enough buzz to, obviously, garner a f*cking press conference (laughs).”
UFC 301 was admittedly put in somewhat of an unfair position as the follow-up act to the historically stacked UFC 300 event this past month. It’s been widely speculated that UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira was originally in line to defend his title against the former titlist Jamahal Hill in the Brazil return. Instead, they wound up atop UFC 300 after a middleweight title tilt between the champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya fizzled out.