Anthony Johnson: I learned that from Josh Koscheck
Anthony Johnson promised his main event fight with fellow welterweight striker Dan Hardy would be a standup affair. He predicted…
Anthony Johnson promised his main event fight with fellow welterweight striker Dan Hardy would be a standup affair. He predicted he’d put Hardy asleep.
Johnson floored Hardy with a head kick early in the Spike TV-televised bout. But after that, he ditched the standup and scored takedown afrer takedown while mixing in 15 minutes of ground and pound.
“I knew what I was going to do,” Johnson said. “I learned that from Josh Koscheck. I took one of out of his book. He did the same thing with Paul Daley.”
“Daley fell for it. What did Koscheck do? He took him down every time.”
“It wasn’t my best performance, but as I said in my interviews, I just needed to win. I could have stood and banged with him. No problem. But why would I stand and bang when I know his absolute weakness is takedown defense and being on his back?”
“I don’t care what people think. … My performance wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but I’ll take it.”
Hardy “won’t give up. I respect that. He’s the toughest guy in the division. I don’t doubt that at all.”
“I for sure want to fight Jon Howard. That’s the guy I want to fight the most … To me, I don’t think about his losses. I just think about what’s going doing between us. He’s a very tough guy. He’s a tough fighter for sure.”
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