At 36 years old and already one of the greatest fighters of all-time, Demetrious Johnson is still adding layers to his game.
This past weekend, Johnson reclaimed the ONE Championship flyweight title with an incredible fourth-round flying knee KO of Adriano Moraes at their rematch ONE on Prime 1, and he did so by showing some new wrinkles to his game.
“One of the biggest things going into this camp, Matt [Hume] told me, ‘Dude, we can be the same DJ that you’ve always shown, or we can show what you really do in the gym. You’re athletic enough to do stuff like that. You’re athletic enough to be quick. You are quick. But when you’re like these [hands up], you’re not quick.’ So that was a little bit of it,” Johnson said on The MMA Hour. Johnson said, “But I am just at the stage in my career when I just have fun.
“Even though I lost against Adriano the first time, I fulfilled all media obligations and told everyone, “Dude, the uppercut got me caught, and I was blasted in my face with a ****** knee. What can you do?’ But this one, I was on the better end of it, giving him the knee. Adriano deserves nothing but respect. I’m just grateful I was able to go out there and showcase a different skill set.”
The win was Johnson’s first knockout victory since his 2016 demolition of Henry Cejudo, but it wasn’t just the finishing sequence that impressed. Johnson appeared to be unafraid of facing an opponent that knocked him out in the past. He fought with low hands, showboating occasionally, and displayed an almost reckless embrace for forward pressure, a strategy which had its own name.
“Going to the fourth, as cornermen James and Tony did an incredible job, I looked up at Matt, said Johnson. “It was a thing we worked on a lot in training camp, which how I kind of look at it, is just walking forward and covering distance.
“In the gym, I would get lit up. It was the most difficult training camp I have ever had. I couldn’t be more disciplined. I didn’t even care about what he was throwing, it wasn’t important to me. I went forward and ate it. I just don’t care. To get the job done I refer to it as “Zombie”. Because I have times at the gym when I am sparring, moving fast, and being elusive. I will not get hit zero. At all. Okay, then, I am going to be a zombie. I will train my eyes to see the storm and prepare my body for it. I will eat it and push through .”
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Johnson went on to say that “Zombie” is not something he would had employed earlier in his career, but said his mindset changed after fighting Rodtang in a mixed rules bout earlier this year. Now, Johnson hopes to showcase more of his full potential inside the cage — potential that has heretofore remained in the gym.
“The biggest regret I have in my career is not filming any of my upbringing in MMA, and the reason I say that is, what you saw, that finishing sequence, is what I deal with every single time I spar Matt,” Johnson said. Johnson said, “That is how he moves. He moves in the following ways: Angles, aligning the knees and landing them — but not on my stomach. That’s stuff that I learned from him my whole entire career. He’ll instruct me or sparring when I drill. It was too late. It was perfect .’
“That’s just the training I’ve done over the years where Matt’s like, ‘You’ve got to wait for the right time and boom, you land it.’
“It is trying to be perfect, and that sequence was basically — boom-bopboom and then boom — it was money. That sequence, I would say, that’s perfect.”
The win inevitably raises questions about where Johnson sits in the global pantheon of flyweight, especially given that in ONE Championship, the flyweight division is contested at 135 pounds due to the promotion’s rehydration rules. But while Johnson reclaimed the top spot in the MMA Fighting Global Flyweight Rankings, for him, he is not comparing himself to the current crop of UFC 125ers. Johnson will leave the decision up to his fans.
“I could but would I [make 125 pounds]?? Absolutely not,” Johnson said.
“So I don’t put myself in that category with [Alexandre] Pantoja, [Deiveson] Figueiredo, [Brandon] Moreno, and those guys. I put myself in the category with Aljamain Sterling, Petr Yan, ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley, Dominick Cruz. Even though I know Aljo said he gets up to 167, and I’m sure when he steps in the octagon he probably weighs like 145, 150, but I’m not weighing 125 pounds.
” I don’t think I want to, but I should not say that I cannot. So for me, I see myself as a bantamweight here in America, but over in Asia it’s flyweight. So I’ll just leave it up to the public. Do you guys believe I am the greatest flyweight currently in the world, and not in America? Dope. That’s awesome. But for me, I’m the champ. I just leave it at that. Y’all decide.”
