Demetrious Johnson seeks to avenge the lone stoppage loss of his career Friday when he rematches ONE flyweight champion Adriano Moraes in the main event of ONE on Prime Video 1 in Singapore — and he isn’t overthinking his knockout defeat from April 2021.
“Mighty Mouse” was a perfect 3-0 in ONE when he first challenged Moraes, but was blasted with an uppercut and a knee to the head midway through Round 2 and lost by knockout.
” I’ve been hurt before, and I don’t doubt myself,” Johnson said to MMA Fighting after being asked if he was questioning his chin following his knockout loss. Johnson said that the chin is a chin. It’s like your brain. Your knees. And it affects your overall health. An athlete’s body can be a time bomb. It’s just a matter of time where an injury is going to happen and put me out of the sport.
“So, the best thing I can do to keep myself in this sport is go to the right training partners, train at the right gyms, hire the right nutritionist, get the right rest, and take the days off that you need to get your body back to 100 percent that you go out and compete. When it got to my chin, and I was getting blasted for that, I didn’t realize how many people could take a knee when they were trying to get up and still be able get up and say, “That was a great knee dawg.” Good knee. Good job.’ Yeah, it was a knee and there’s nothing you can do about that.”
Johnson bounced back to the win column with a second-round submission over Rodtang Jitmuangnon in a mixed-rules contest this past March, while Moraes extended his reign by tapping out Yuya Wakamatsu with a guillotine choke on the same night.
“There’s no secret recipe. It’s called fighting for a reason,” Johnson said of the rematch. You can have a strategic plan, but the game changes quickly. That’s why now I’m working on just pure jiu-jitsu just to keep my mind and my development fresh. People always hear me say that although there’s a game plan to follow, the primary focus of the game is on being the Demetrious Johnson.
” We know his strengths and we know where he will excel. At the same time, we can plan to counter at that, but if the conditioning is not right, if your mindset is not right, if you don’t feel confident in your training, then the game plan means absolutely nothing.”
Johnson has fought some of the best in flyweight MMA and defeated the likes Henry Cejudo (John Dodson), Kyoji Horiguchi and Joseph Benavidez. Johnson has compared the Brazilian fighter to Dominick Cruz due to the manner he moves around the cage and considers him a more complex puzzle than Cejudo.
“Adriano is a very interesting athlete and problem to solve,” Johnson said. “He’s longer, he has good movement, good footwork, and he approaches the fights different. I watched his fight against Yuya Wakamatsu, I was there live, and they’re both counterstrikers. Counterstrikers are not known for engaging in combat, which was one of the most important lessons we had.
” When I looked at his fight against me, it felt like I had rushed. I felt like I rushed, put myself in uppercut distance. Although I am shorter than I should be, I feel almost as if I did a double take on that uppercut. It is a battle and I want to win it .”
When Johnson left the UFC in a trade with ONE Championship, “Mighty Mouse” said he dreamed of competing all over the world and collecting belts from every major promotion after breaking the record for most consecutive title defenses in UFC history.
After winning the grand prix title at ONE but coming up short in his first attempt to dethrone Moraes, Johnson now sees that his plans weren’t “feasible.”
” That’s unrealistic, isn’t it? It just isn’t,” he said. “Because, at the end of the day, one, you’re locked in a contract with this specific promotion; two, the timeline that I would need in order to do all that stuff just isn’t feasible. It took me three fights to get to Adriano to get a title shot at ONE Championship. That’s the world grand prix belt, but I didn’t get the ONE Championship belt. And I’m still locked on a contract.
“Now, if I wanted to go to Bellator to try to get that belt, I would have to get out of the ONE Championship contract, then go to Bellator, fight two or three fights, win them, and then get a title shot there. You can leave this division and move to RIZIN, fight two or three more fights and get the belt. So, that would be a nice thing to do, but the way the sport is set up and the organizations, how you’re locked, etc., it’s just not realistic.
“But I’m happy I have UFC belts, got 11 of them b******, and I got a ONE Championship world grand prix belt, so that’s awesome. It would be great if I could add the ONE Championship gold world championship belt. But, to collect all the belts, no, I think that’s just a handful of guys who done that. Eddie [Alvarez] comes to mind .”
Competing under the ONE banner since 2019 and having just celebrated his 36th birthday earlier this month, Johnson plans to end his career in Asia.
“I’ll retire at ONE Championship. I don’t see myself going anywhere else,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to fight when I’m 38, 39. If I have to, I will, but I don’t want to. I hate trying to put a number on that because I don’t want say, ‘OK, when 38 I’m done,’ but I see guys like Glover Teixeira who fought at his 41 or 42 and looked great out there, he’s loving it, he’s having fun mentally, I’m assuming, and his brain health is still good.
” Take a look at Bibiano Fernandes. He is still fighting in his 40s. He’s fighting one time a year but it’s not like he’s doing three times. And also comes down to the children. It’s been a long time since I was able to spend some quality time with the children. Right now, it’s summertime and my wife and kids are outside enjoying the sun. I am trying to get hydrated, eat and ready for the next training session .”
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