Johnson defeats Elliott, who puts up a hell of a fight

The first, last, and only UFC flyweight champion Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson is the best pound for pound fighter in mixed martial arts, with no holes in his game. Johnson has tremendous wrestling, tremendous striking, and a tremendous submission game.

He needed it all to defeat Tim Elliot on Saturday night at The Ultimate Fighter 24 Finale.

TUF 24 was seen by many as a contrivance. The premise of the series was taking 16 champions from regional promotions and having them fight for a shot at Johnson. It seems silly – there is a reason regional champions are regional. Either regional champions are not yet ready for the UFC, or as commonly, they were in the UFC and released.

In the end, it wasn’t one of the unheralded fighters who won the event. It wasn’t South Africa’s EFC champion Nkazimulo Zulu. It wasn’t Shooto Brazil’s champion Ronaldo Candido. It wasn’t Shooto Japan’s champion Hiromasa Ogikubo. It ended up being the one guy who least fit the script.

Tim Elliott had been in the UFC, but got released after losing three in a row. Ali Bagautinov decisioned him, Joseph Benavidez tapped him in the first, Zach Makovsky decisioned him. And then Makovsky lost his next two. He had no business being in a UFC title fight.

However, Elliott went to the excellent Titan FC becoming their inaugural flyweight champion and defending it successfully twice. Then the UFC washout came in and tore through the regional talent. At the end, he faced the #1 P4P fighter in MMA.

It seemed silly. However, the reason you have a fight in MMA is because you don’t know who is going to win.

Elliott gave Johnson the toughest fight he ever had at flyweight, winning the first round and threatening him with two tight chokes. Elliott’s stand up is a cross between karate and a particularly excitable Missouri bar fight. This is not due to lack of technique, it is by design.

A highly athletic beginner is sometimes harder to spar with that someone good, as they lack timing, and don’t know what they are going to do next, so you don’t know, either. Elliott fights with no rhythm and no predictability. Johnson wanted none of it, keeping the fight on the floor and riding Elliott for extremely long portions of the remaining four rounds.

Elliott might have done better still if he had tried harder to keep it standing, but he is equally aggressive, unpredictable, and crowd-pleasing on the ground, trying to grab submissions from everywhere. So rather than fight the takedowns, Elliott seemed content to let the fight go to the ground, and let his tornado style ground game take over.

In the end, Johnson won unanimously and is now just one fight away from tieing Anderson Silva’s 10 straight title defenses. Johnson showed the completeness and the greatness of his game, and he needed it.

In the co-main Joseph Benavidez won a wild, angry strikefest with Henry Cejudo. So we know who Johnson’s next fight is, too. To those saying the fight isn’t worth it given that Mighty Mouse won the first two, well, no one thought this fight was worth it either.

Can’t wait to see Elliott fight again, too.