It’s been a long time coming, perhaps, but former UFC flyweight champ and ONE Championship star Demetrious Johnson is ready to proclaim himself one of the best flyweights to ever put on the gloves.
“I’ve acknowledged I’m one of the best flyweights to ever walk this planet Earth. Yeah, 1000%, I’ll say it,” Johnson told reporters during a media scrum at the ONE on Prime Video open workouts this week.
“As far as the Greatest of All Time, with Jon Jones, Khabib [Nurmagomedov], all those guys, I’ll leave that to the community,” Johnson added. “But there hasn’t been a flyweight out there who’s done what I’ve done, and who imposes his will or his game. I truly believe that. The stats speak for themselves, even over in America and here.”
Johnson is back in Singapore to prepare for a rematch with Adriano Moraes, who shocked the world by defeating Johnson in the pair’s first meeting last year. Since then, Johnson picked up a win in a special rules bout against Muay Thai legend Rodtang, and will now get another crack at ONE Championship gold.
Ahead of the fight, Johnson has said that he’s focused more on BJJ these days. Clarifying those comments, “Mighty Mouse” explained that “Getting ready for a fight gets redundant and gets monotonous, especially when you’re fighting the same person again, right? There’s only so much content that you can watch of that person and study. So for me, I found an amazing grappling gym by my house, Professor Yan, GRPL Club.”
With the opportunity to hone his jiu-jitsu skills in front of him, Johnson said that he began substituting some of his other training for grappling. “I started doing more grappling than going to the gym and lifting weights and doing cardio. Because I never got tired in my fights. So instead of like, ‘okay lets go to the gym and push our heart rate to 185 beats a minute, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, and Friday morning,’ I’d be like ‘okay why don’t we just substitute that with Brazilian jiu-jitsu?'”
As Johnson went on to point out, “it’s more practical to what I do in mixed martial arts.”
Despite predicting a knockout in the past, and the outcome of the pair’s first fight, Johnson sees no animosity in the rematch. That’s normal for the Washington-based fighter, who explained that he always has other things to focus on, from family to t-shirt designs to live streaming on Twitch.
“I’m showing up, fighting, going out there and giving it my all, and then after that, move on to the next one.”
Watch the full ONE on Prime Video open workout scrum with Demetrious Johnson above.
