Mighty: I’ll fight up, for a nicer paycheck
Demetrious Johnson: “The only thing that makes me intrigued to go up a weight class is if the paycheck is gonna be nicer.”
UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is the role model for combat sports. He is the best in the world at what he does. He is a solid family man. He is investing in his future, so when he retires, his family is comfortable. He holds himself with dignity and will stand up to management as necessary. On Saturday night, with a win he will break Anderson Silva’s record for title defenses.
The problem is the MMA fanbase, for whom being the best in the world and a terrific human being who overcame a rough childhood is not nearly enough. They want trash talk, the louder and meaner and more inventive the better.
A lot of people put winning championships high on their list, he said to Thomas Gerbasi for UFC.com. You hear people saying, ‘I was born to be champion, I was born to win titles.’ For me, nothing is more important or precious in life than life itself and building a family.
I’m a ten-time defending world champion in the UFC, but nothing else has changed. I’m still the same guy. But when it’s time to step up and start whupping ass, I make sure I show up and I’m game for every opponent I fight.
The possibility of fighting up a division has been raised many times, and Johnson will accommodate, if he’s paid.
For me, it’s not about going up, Johnson said. I don’t have an ego in trying to fight guys who are bigger than me. I’ve been there and done that, and obviously, the only thing that makes me intrigued to go up a weight class is if the paycheck is gonna be nicer.
Right now he has to fight Ray Borg in the co-main event of UFC 216.
I think anybody I fought is the most dangerous guy I’ve ever fought, just because I’m the only champion ever to be in the flyweight division, he said. If anybody can beat me, then they just became the man who decapitated the king. So I know he’s hungry, I know he’s young, and I’ve never taken any fighter lightly and I don’t take my paycheck lightly, so I’m gonna go out there and it’s gonna be one of the best performances you’ve ever seen.
And it could be the best performance we ever see from Mighty. Johnson is now 31.
I don’t want to do this for another ten years, he laughs. I’ll continue to train, but the competing aspect of it, I’ll probably give myself another five or six years, maybe even seven. We’ll see what happens. But am I in my tip-top physical peak as a man? I’m probably getting there.