- Demetrious Johnson talks about training with former champion Henry Cejudo.
- Johnson recalls a phone call with Dana White after finding out about TUF 24.
Demetrious Johnson is three years removed from his departure from the UFC. Now the former flyweight champion is taking a walk down memory lane and is recalling some of the highs and lows of his career. Johnson was involved in the first-ever “MMA trade” when he was sent to ONE Championship in exchange for Ben Askren. At the time there was talk of troubles between Johnson and the UFC, and later Johnson spoke about finding happiness fighting in Asia.
When he lost his flyweight belt it was to Henry Cejudo back in 2019. The loss shocked many, but now the two former champions have found a friendship and have been training together. Johnson spoke about this new comradery on the most recent episode of The MMA Hour.
“I love it it was awesome,” Johnson said. “I mean obviously, he’s achieved a lot of things in mixed martial arts that I didn’t do right. I mean beat me, went on to defend the belt against Dom, beat Marlon and you know gold medalist, so Triple C, and now he wants to come back and fight Volk which I think he can do so I think me him training together we got to see it kind of like our insights and see how different we are as athletes but it was dope.”
Johnson plans to train with Cejudo again around November. He went on to explain how he feels the loss to Cejudo worked out well for both of them, Johnson was able to leave the UFC and Cejudo went on to have his own success.
Demetrious Johnson recalled a phone argument he had with Dana White
The fact that Johnson thinks leaving the UFC was in his best interest goes to show the kind of relationship he had with the promotion. He recalled an intense conversation he had with president Dana White leading up to the 24th season of The Ultimate Fighter. That season was set up to offer one cast member a chance to fight Johnson for the belt, however, Johnson says he did not know of this until the concept was mentioned to him by a random fan on his Twitch stream.
“Somebody in Twitch chat came, it was like, did you hear about the Ultimate Fighter they’re going to do next? I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘they’re gonna do Ultimate Fighter, it’s gonna be all the champions, and they’re gonna fight you and the winner gets a fight. for the belt, and I said ‘that’s f-cking stupid.’ The next day got a phone call from Dana White. Dana White never called me when I was in the UFC He called me goes, you dumbass. You just ruined this whole thing we’re trying to set up for you.”
Johnson explained that White was mad that he let the cat out of the bag, but Johnson was not warned beforehand. This was just one of the things he disagreed with the UFC about. Now he is happy with his new home in ONE Championship and has his next fight all set. He will be taking on Adriano Moraes for the ONE Flyweight Championship at ONE 161. The event will be streamed live on Amazon Prime.
