Demetrious Johnson may have needed some time to adjust, but he seemed to enjoy his mixed-rules bout with Rodtang Jitmuangnon.
ONE Championship celebrated its 10-year anniversary last month with ONE X, a 20-fight card that featured MMA, muay Thai, kickboxing, and special-rules bouts. In the co-main event of the epic night, Demetrious Johnson faced off with one of the best muay Thai fighters in the world, Rodtang Jitmuangnon, in a mixed-rules bout of four three-minute rounds that alternated between muay Thai rules and MMA rules. With the first round of the bout being muay Thai, it presented some challenges for the 12-time UFC flyweight champion.
“I was a little nervous because I always revert back to my natural instincts, which is, if somebody’s gonna close the distance like he did — that was a thing I was really impressed about,” Johnson told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. Johnson said that Johnson walked straight across the cage to punch me in the face right before the fight began. [Laughs] That’s when I came in and started to body lock him, and once I body lock him I threw two knees and they’re like, ‘You can’t do that.’..
” To give more context, you can go back to the Hiroki Akimoto Vs. Capitan [Petchyindee, a kickboxing bout on the same card], Capitan fight. Capitan (a muay Thai fighter) is shown. Capitan likes to push ahead and clinch. … If you watch the fight again, you will see that he clinches immediately. The ref then starts breaking the rules. ‘Stop clinching, stop breaking the rules.’ He got fined 10 percent. Then he got fined 20 percent, and I told Matt [Hume, Johnson’s longtime coach], ‘I ain’t coming over here to lose 10 percent of my paycheck. You’ll find parts of my fight that look like this [hands straight out].. Because I do not want to be beaten for points, my hands are straight. … It was the hardest thing to do because naturally I want to clinch. … That was the only hardest thing. And after a minute and a half I started to settle in and throw combinations. He hit me with some very good shots but that’s all part of the fight .”
Johnson made it through the first round, and with the second round being MMA, “Mighty Mouse” felt good about his chances.
“I went back to the corner and my teammate goes, ‘This your round, baby! This your round! You take it to him!’ and I was like, ‘OK, let’s go get it, boys.’ It was fun,” he said.
” I knew he would use more footwork than usual and not move forward as he did in the first round. I wanted to be sure and tell my team that I wasn’t going to rush him. It won’t be rushed. I don’t care. If we make it through the second round, and he doesn’t fall to the floor or surrender to me, then I will go on to the third round to do muay Thai. I don’t care. I won’t rush to get there and end up getting caught.
I prefer to take it slow and work hard to make him happy.
Johnson managed to accomplish this feat and defeated Rodtang by a rear-naked choke just two minutes into round 2. It was Johnson’s first win since 2019 and, having suffered his first knockout loss in a fight this past year against Adriano Moraes, it was one some believed the 35-year old needed to get back on track. But ‘Mighty Mouse’ disagrees.
” Johnson stated that he never believed that he had lost his mojo. Johnson said, “When I win my fights it feels great. It feels amazing. But when it loses it hurts. So I try to keep myself at an even playing field. My fight against Rodtang, it was a great fight, I loved it, I’m very happy I got the victory, and it was awesome to share the ring with him. I’m just humble and I’m grateful that I was able to get this win and come out healthy and unscathed.”
Johnson wants to make the most of this relative health and have a fast turnaround. Having only fought once in the past two and a half years largely due to COVID-19 restrictions, he is hoping to be more active this year.
“It will be summer time,” Johnson said. “No opponent yet. It’s gonna be July, August, summer time. I’ve got a couple trips and then I’ll be right back into training camp.”
