Demetrious Johnson’s AKA “Mighty Mouse” demolished his opponent Ray Borg in their co-main event fight at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night (Oct 7) in Las Vegas. MMA world got stunned with his unique finish by one-of-kind suplex-to-flying armbar that led to a record-breaking win over Ray Borg at UFC 216. That was considered the best submission in the UFC history. He broke the Anderson Silva’s record by keeping his title belt.
Mighty Mouse said he has regularly been working on his submission skills from past few years.
while speaking to (MMA Hour) on Monday:
“It’s always been in my back pocket, in my toolbox, but I never try to force submissions,” Johnson said Monday on The MMA Hour. “When you start trying to force things, that’s when you over-extend, you make mistakes. And so for that, it was just the perfect timing, man.
“(Head coach) Matt (Hume) has been working with me on shifting people’s weights when they’re trying to be heavy. And then once Ray Borg threw that back elbow, he took his weight off, he went to focus on planting, so I purposefully started kneeing him in the legs, just getting his mind on something else. So once he goes, ‘back elbow,’ thank you, you just moved your weight for me, now you just became lighter. Then threw him up and that’s why I was able to execute that.”
Demetrious Johnson mentioned, over the course of his training he saw armbar sequence many times and practice this move in the gym over hundred times.
Overall, Johnson finished his seven of ten bouts with the top tier competitions. At the UFC 216 ceremonial weigh-in, Johnson got into some trash talk where Ray Borg claims he would beat the Johnson into scrambles.
“Ray Borg is tough. Very, very tough,” Johnson said. “I hit him with some good shots, some good knees to the liver, a couple liver kicks, and I felt that he was always going to be tough. And that was the thing when I fought him. When you look at his previous fights, the thing he’s really good at that people don’t appreciate is, one, he’s very tough, two, he’s very good at the scrambles. So it almost kinda reminds me of Tim Elliot — Tim Elliot will let you get his back. He’ll let you have his back, that way when you go down for the choke, he’ll scramble and end up on top, and then next thing you know, you’re on your back and you have to get off.
“So when I was with Ray Borg, I was like, ‘Dude, you’re letting me have this, that’s fine. I’m going to let you think I’m going to go for it, and then you when you try to scramble, I’m going to be ahead of you in the scramble, because you think you think you’re a better scrambler than I am, because I remember you saying that my scrambling ability is horrible.’
“I didn’t bother me (that he said that), it’s just that I just wanted to prove a point.”
Mighty Mouse mentioned his UFC 216 victory over contender Ray Borg means so much to him than any of his past success. Johnson is taking a little time off before he decides his next bout.
“To go through 11 title training camps is just hard on the body, man. I put more miles on my body (in training) than I do fighting, so this was a huge one for me,” Johnson said. “And I told everybody, like, ‘Dude, I don’t even want to think about fighting my next fight until the beginning of the year.’ So this one was [important]. Nobody in the history of mixed martial arts itself, DREAM, Pride, ONE FC, LFA, Titan, Strikeforce, I can just go on, Rizin — nobody, not even one champion, has defended a title eight times as a male or female, and I just did 11?
“So this is a big f*cking deal, and it means a lot to me.
“For me, I just like to be able to have my name above all the other champions. I mean, we’ve had some great champions. Anderson, GSP, Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, and we all offer something totally different to the table as a champion. But for me, to bring consistency as a champion, pass all my drug tests as a champion, probably one of the easiest champions to work with in the UFC — that goes a long way in my book. So I’m happy.”
