Demetrious Johnson hasn’t at all times gotten the respect he deserves as the most effective UFC champions to ever do it, so it was good to see the MMA world unite on Saturday evening to name for his return towards flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja.
Pantoja had simply dispatched RIZIN champion Kai Asakura in a spherical and a half (highlights right here), leaving him with few choices on the prime of the 125 pound division. So he known as out “Mighty Mouse,” and for a second it gave the impression of the right means for Johnson to return to the UFC and wrap his profession towards the second finest flyweight champ within the promotion.
The one downside? Johnson retired earlier this yr and isn’t . In any respect. Lower than an hour after Pantoja’s callout, Johnson shot the thought down. Now he’s explaining why in a brand new video on his YouTube channel.
“My black ass ain’t coming again,” he declared. “You realize what the attractive factor concerning the place I’m in is? I’ve been supplied $2 million to come back and do one struggle. One struggle, and what do you guys assume I mentioned? I mentioned no. I mentioned completely no and it wasn’t with the UFC. It wasn’t towards Alex Pantoja.”
“I’m not gonna let you know who it was with,” Johnson continued. “However I obtained supplied $2 million a struggle, and there comes a time limit in an athlete’s profession the place you sit again and also you’re like, why? Why? Why am I preventing? Is it to be the very best on the planet? S—. I used to be the very best on the planet for six years, not simply in America, but in addition in Japan. And I went up a division. I went 135 as an alternative of 125.”
“Then after I made the choice, I don’t care to struggle anymore, I gave myself a full blown yr. A full blown yr to see if I’m gonna miss it. If it’s my id. And I didn’t miss it.”
Johnson remains to be exhibiting up at grappling tournaments, so the aggressive fireplace remains to be lively inside him. He simply obtained tired of what blended martial arts was providing him. And whereas it’s good to think about a scenario the place the UFC makes up for years of under-promotion and disrespect to arrange an enormous ultimate struggle for “Mighty Mouse,” his assured disinterest in even contemplating the thought tells you he doesn’t want something from anybody to validate his profession.
As for Johnson’s opinion of Pantoja’s submission win over Asakura?
“I used to be not shocked one bit,” Demetrious mentioned. “When you could have a man who’s so rattling harmful in a single space of blended martial arts, that’s the place he must to remain in an effort to achieve success. That means that if Kai Asakura went on the bottom with Alex Pantoja, Pantoja is gonna eat his ass up alive, and that’s precisely what Pantoja did.”
