Why Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson Left the UFC

So this Rod Tang fight, one of the things that's very interesting about 1FC is how they're just really mixing everything up. They've got grappling matches, you know, Mikey Musimechi's over there competing, Gary Tonen, the Rotolo brothers. It's like, it's very wild what they're doing. They're having Muay Thai matches, kickboxing matches. Without one boxing match, which was for a WBC title. Really? Oh yeah, it was... Boxing gloves? Boxing gloves. Yeah, it was one boxing. Like, it was a world title fight. That's one of the things I love about 1 Championship is that they're mixing it up, right? So when I got the opportunity to go over there and compete, like, I knew I had the opportunity to do something fun like I did with Rod Tang, right? Now, was it difficult to make that decision to leave the UFC? Because you were, you know, coming off of a very close, controversial loss to Henry Suhudo. Very close fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like mostly the wrestling. A couple takedowns that he got. Yeah, it was a couple takedowns. And I think I relied too much on a lay kicks. Like, in that fight, I couldn't get him down to the ground. The Shreking seemed on the feet, like with the hands, it seemed like it was pretty even. I think I out landed him, like when you look at the Shrek, Shrek, Copy Box Shrek numbers. But I felt like I relied too much on a lay kicks because I was fucking tearing those legs up. Well, you hurt his leg real bad in that first round. Yes. He got that drop foot thing going on. Yep, yep. That was the point going on. But I was like, I couldn't get there with the hands, right? I couldn't knock out the hands. So I was like, you know, I'm gonna tear your leg up. I kept on tearing the leg up. And when the fight ended, and I was like, he probably got it. I was like, he beat me. Then they read this scorecard and I was like, it is what it is. Like, what are you gonna do? So what was the decision after that? Like, what was that like? So it was frustrating. But then, you know, at the time I was like, I wonder if I can do something different, right? I was going in the back and at the time Maki was in managing me. He still is, first round manager. And I was like, he said, you tell me what you want to do, bro. You know, you just let me know and we'll figure it out. And I was like, I wonder if I get out of my contract. I was like, you know, try to do something different. Because at the time, I looked at it this way. If I were to fight Henry Sirot again for the third time, it could have gone either two ways. One, I beat Henry, then I'm still stuck in the same situation I am right now when at the time they're trying to get rid of. Or in talks about getting rid of the fight with division, right? Or two, if I lose to Henry, then I'm still stuck in the same position I just lost him again. So why not see if I can go explore other options, right? And then that's when the trade talks came about. And so the UFC just said, fine, go ahead. Well, there was more to it, right? I mean, obviously, you know, Chachu just, you know, talked about it. It was, I heard you had something to do with it as well. Like, yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll get to that point. So obviously, you know, they wanted, Ben Asking has been wanting to fight in UFC for a long time. Right. And then so one championship and UFC were talking back and forth between Hunter and Matt Hume and Maki, sir, like, hey, let's do a trade, right? Like, we'll give you Ben Asking for Demetrius Johnson. And then at one point I heard that, you know, Dana was like, nah, I don't, I don't, I don't want to make that happen. Right. I don't know the full. I was in the room where all the puzzle pieces are being shifted and then I was hanging out somewhere and then somebody said, you know, Joe Rogan had a PC now. I was like, really? He goes, yeah. And I was told that you kind of convinced him. Like, who gives a shit? Like, just get, get Ben Asking or something like that. So yeah, I know. Right. So that's not really. No, I definitely was trying to get them to get Ben Asking, but I was trying to get them to get Ben Asking back when he was a Bellator when he was in his prime. Yeah. And I was like, listen, man, this guy is wrestle fucking everybody. I want to see if he could do that to the whole division. Like when, when Ben was in his prime, when he did that to Koroskov, did that to Douglas Lima. Yep. I was like, you got to understand how crazy this is that this guy can do this to everybody. Yeah. And people say, oh, it's boring. It's boring. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's fighting. Yep. This guy is imposing his style on these murderers. Yeah. I mean, Koroskov was a murderer and Douglas Lima is a fucking savage. Yep. And he was like, I'm doing it in weird ways. I remember he, he has a funky style about doing things. And I remember somebody said he was training with him and he was able to twist and turn a certain way to where a normal human being would do it. They would like tear their cartilage in their ribs. And he was able to do that and bring him back to where he was. And I was like, yeah, dude, that's, that's a freak right there. But he's always wrestled like that because he's not like a physically imposing guy. I'm sure he's very strong because he's been wrestling his whole life. Yeah. And that style was always like this is weird style that was very difficult for people to understand. So they would, they would try to like do traditional shit with him and all of a sudden they'd be on their back. Yeah. It just didn't work. By the time we got him though, he was already fucked up. He needed the hip replacement. And he was already retired. Right. And so that's, that's what I heard. And so when they were wanting to do that trade, they're like, yeah, we'll take Demetrius over Ben because Demetrius is still active and he's still, you know, still, I always look at myself as a workhorse, right? I will, you're paying me to fight. I'm going to fight. Right. And so I think it was a no brainer for them. And that's, that's how it happened. Well, I definitely would have kept you in the UFC. So that's not, I'm sorry, sweetheart. I mean, if you look at guys like Davidson Figurato, Brandon Moreno, there's some amazing fights for you. Yeah, absolutely. And the flyweight division has sort of risen up now. There's a lot of like very interesting contenders now. Yeah. But I don't have any say in like, which, what goes down. Yeah. I'm not the guy in the negotiating room. I'm not saying you were the one that was like, we need to make this happen. Okay. When you make it happen. Like I just heard that you kind of had like some type of persuasion, I guess you can say when you guys were out and about. But that's what I've been told. Like I said, I don't know the full story because I'm just an athlete and I'm just, hey, this is what I want. Can you guys make it happen? Then I'll let the higher ups like Hunter, Matt, Hume, Maki, they're doing all the pieces and then, you know, shit, for all I know, that could have been a fucking rumor. Right. So it's definitely a rumor. Oh, well, there you go. It's a rumor. Don't believe we're at V here. But I definitely was excited to see Ben Askren come over to the UFC. And also as a fight fan, I was excited to see you go over to one. Yeah. Because the same way I was excited to see Eddie Alvarez over there. And I think we need more events. More competition is good. One thousand percent. Good for everybody. Absolutely. And what you're seeing now with 1FC is these world class fucking guys. I'm going to be doing a video. 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