Many fans in mixed martial arts love a fight where the athletes set caution aside and punch each other until someone falls. But fighting like Diego Sanchez is bad for you. During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, the best fighter in the UFC, flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson, said he could have traded more with Ray Borg at UFC 215, but the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

So the fight of the night went to Bobby Green vs. Lando Vannata who traded thrillingly to a bloody draw.

I think I could’ve lit him up a little more on the feet, said Johnson, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. But like, when I hit him with my cross and I saw him, he just smiled, I thought, ‘Okay, you’ve got a hard head. You’ve got a granite chin.’ So I was like, okay. I’m always calculating everything, so I was like, ‘Okay, if I stand and bang with him, there’s I chance I get clipped, and then that clip, I can get a mouse under my eyes or I can get cut, et cetera, et cetera.’

So it’s like, ‘Eh, do I want to do this? Eh, no, let’s just change elevation and take him down and look for the big shot when I get the opportunity.’ So that’s how I think about mixed martial arts. Now, if we were in the gym sparring, then I should’ve been able to light him up on the feet and exchange more. But when you have those three-ounce gloves on, why take the risk?

I saw Bobby Green and Lando Vannata, and everybody in the back was like, ‘Oh, man, that’s a sick fight!’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, look at his face, that cannot be good for his brain.’ I’m just honest. I think [Vannata] is an amazing fighter, he has a great game, he comes forward, does a good job mixing it up, great power. But for me, if I was his coach, I’d be like, ‘Dude, you need to work on your wrestling. We need to work on your clinch game. We need to work on not taking so much damage, because I want you to have a long career.’

When you’re done fighting, I don’t want to look back at your fights and be like, ‘Oh man, you were such a sick-ass fighter, you did this and this.’ I want to look back at your career and be like, ‘Man, you did such a good job of not taking any damage, and look, you have something to show for it. You have a 15-year career, instead of a short three or four years because of all the concussions you’ve taken.’

So that’s my whole thing. But those two fighters, amazing. I told Bobby Green, I was like, ‘Damn, dog, you go have that five-piece chicken meal. I was worried about you. You’ve got to duck and move and do some wrestling, homie.’

At UFC 216 Green was struck 111 times, and Vannatta 104 times. By contrast, Johnson was hit 22 times, to Borg’s 172. Johnson outstruck many of his opponents by dramatic margins:
18 to 135 vs. Wilson Reis at UFC on Fox 24;
8 to 35 vs. Henry Cejudo at UFC 197;
61 to 149 vs. Kyoji Horiguchi at UFC 186;
13 to 47 vs. Chris Cariaso at UFC 178; and,
66 to 164 vs. Ali Bagautinov at UFC 174.

Be like Demetrious Johnson.