Mighty: Defending title record times is ‘extremely freaking hard’

The best P4P pound fighter in mixed martial arts, Demetrious Johson, appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and made an obvious point. Some say Jon Jones is the UFC G.O.A.T.; he defended his title successfully eight times. Some say it’s GSP, who defended it nine times. The most common choice is Anderson Silva, who defended ten times. But ‘Mighty’ Johnson holds the record for successful title defenses, with 11.

He told Helwani it’s really hard.

You see champions all the time, they get the belt, then they go on a two-fight win streak and lose it,” said Johnson, as transcribed by Adam Guillen Jr. for MMA Mania. “To be able to defend the belt from 2012 to 2017 and hopefully defend two more times in 2018, it’s extremely freaking hard.”

That’s why there are a only of couple people who have done it: ‘GSP,’ Jon Jones, Jose Aldo, me, and Anderson Silva. That’s five guys right there in the span I have been a champion.”

I always chuckle because I remember there was a time when Chris Weidman was champion, Jose was champion, Frankie was champion, Barao was champion and even TJ became champion. Dominick Cruz was champion, they’re not anymore. I am still sitting here on my throne. You see it over time even Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, and it’s kind of like, damn, it’s good s*** I guess.

Johnson plans to fight twice in 2018, with one perhaps bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw.

That’s the plan, this year two fights,” he said. “There comes a point in time, I was looking at my Wikipedia page and there were times where I fought four times in one year, I defended the belt three times in one year, got surgery between those title defenses. I think it’s safe to say that my goal is to get two title defenses this year and we will go from there. I’ll try to stay healthy and we will see then.