Is Demetrious Johnson the most underappreciated fighter ever?
MMA is an odd sport. The best and most consistent athletes aren’t always the most popular. The separation between UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson’s talents and his drawing power is immense.
Johnson is, arguably, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world today and is easily one of the top fighters of all-time. He gave bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, himself one of the best ever, one of his most difficult challenges, even though at the time they fought in 2011, Johnson still had a job and hadn’t fully committed to MMA.
Johnson has evolved into such a monster that the UFC has effectively run out of legitimate challengers for him.
Joseph Benavidez is by far the best flyweight in the world other than Johnson, and he’s 0-2 against “Mighty Mouse,” including a first-round knockout loss in 2013. Benavidez is 0-4 against Johnson and Cruz and 24-0 against everyone else.
Benavidez himself is one of the best fighters to have ever lived, but he’s had the unfortunate timing of being in the weight classes of two of the five or six best pound-for-pound fighters in history.
Johnson’s pay-per-view shows have consistently come in at less than 200,000 sales, which is a joke considering his talent.
In order to boost it, the UFC has created a season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” in which it brought in the flyweight champions of 16 other MMA organizations in a bid to find the best challenger for Johnson. It debuts Wednesday on Fox Sports 1.
The show will help familiarize fans with Johnson as it plays out and could, however unlikely, find an opponent who could push Johnson.
Johnson’s fight with Cruz, which he lost by unanimous decision in 2011, proved to be something of an awakening for him. He was a full-time forklift operator and part-time fighter who, despite win after win, wasn’t anyone’s idea of great.
“I’m light years away from the fighter I was when I was at 135,” Johnson said. “I was still working full-time. The only fight at 135 when I was fighting and not working full-time was Dom, and even then, I wasn’t training under Matt [Hume] full-time. That just puts into perspective what I was doing. At the time, I was making more money working a full-time job than I was fighting in the UFC.”
He started full-time training for his rematch with Ian McCall, which he won by unanimous decision on June 8, 2012.
Since that time, he’s gone 10-0 with four finishes and has looked increasingly spectacular each time out.
It’s almost incomprehensible to believe that any of these fighters are going to be able to push him, but Johnson thinks this season, which is being coached by Benavidez and Henry Cejudo, will prove to be a boon for the division overall.
“To me, this is fighting and I love to fight,” Johnson said. “It’s nothing new. I’ve fought [John] Dodson, who was a TUF winner, before, so I’ve done this already. So it’s just another opponent, honestly. But it’s awesome for them to go out there and do a show that spotlights the division. And I got a lot of camera time, as well.”
Johnson is the quickest fighter in the sport, as well as one of the most technically proficient. But his secret is that he’s learned to never take an opponent for granted.
As all UFC fighters are, he’s paid more the more he wins, and so he’s motivated by the loss of salary.
“There is no disputing that my paycheck depends on if I win or not,” he said. “So it would be ridiculous of me to say, ‘Oh, this guy isn’t as good and so I don’t need to put 100 percent into my training camp.’ No. It doesn’t work that way. Everyone I fight is going to raise their game, because this is their one shot at history.
“I’m going to get the best of whatever the guy I’m fighting has each time out. So whether I’m fighting the 16th guy on the roster or I’m facing Joseph Benavidez again, I have to take him seriously. If I don’t, my paycheck is going to reflect that.”
Long runs are rare for UFC champions, particularly these days when the competition is so close. No male UFC champion other than Johnson currently has more than one successful title defense. Heavyweight Stipe Miocic, middleweight Michael Bisping, welterweight Tyron Woodley, lightweight Eddie Alvarez, and featherweight Conor McGregor, have yet to make a successful title defense.
Light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has one successful defense, as does bantamweight champ Cruz. Among the women, strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk has defended her belt successfully three times.
Johnson is at eight, tied with former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones for the third most in UFC history. Only Georges St-Pierre (9) and Anderson Silva (10) are ahead of him.
Johnson is a magnificent fighter who hasn’t gotten the respect he deserves. Not only is he extraordinarily talented, he is as professional as they come, and he’s improving each time out.
The best hope to see Johnson pushed in a title fight may come next year, if Benavidez gets by Cejudo and gets a third crack at Johnson.
The Ultimate Fighter format has gotten stale, but it still regularly produces quality talent, so it remains a UFC fixture.
If it can find someone who can remotely challenge Johnson, it might well be the most successful season since its debut in 2005.
Johnson is that good.
