TJ Dillashaw: Time for ‘scared’ Demetrious Johnson to ‘man up and take this fight’
TJ Dillashaw wants his chance to prove that he is the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, not ‘Mighty Mouse.’
T.J. Dillashaw is tired of waiting for Demetrious Johnson to accept his challenge. He first called out ‘Mighty Mouse’ back in the spring, shortly after his title shot at Cody Garbrandt was put on hold due to injury. The idea caught some traction with fans, and the UFC was eager to jump on it. DJ, however? Not so much.
Now, with the belt once again around his waist, and the fight back on the table, Dillashaw is getting impatient.
“I want to prove that I could have stopped him from breaking the record when he turned down the fight and was scared to fight me,” said Dillashaw on a recent episode of Submission Radio. “This is the one that everyone wants to talk about, everyone wants to see, and so it’s time for him to man up and take this fight.”
While Johnson is widely believed to be the best pound-for-pound fighter currently in MMA, Dillashaw admits that his opinion of ‘Mighty Mouse’ changed when the fight didn’t come together originally in August. “It showed that he was scared, man. It showed that he wanted the easier fight to break his record, it showed some weakness in him.”
“He was saying that I needed to make 125 or I needed to be a champion at 135, those are his excuses. So no, I got the belt back and he should have taken the fight anyways. I’m not going to have to take a fight at 125. No one’s got time for that. And if I’m not fighting you, I’d like to defend my belt. I’m not gonna go around, ain’t nobody got time for that stuff. (I don’t) got time for little games.”
The new UFC bantamweight champion also explained that while Henry Cejudo has steadily climbed his way back up the rankings since his first-round loss to Johnson back in April of 2016, holding the 135-pound strap gives him the necessary ‘credentials’ to face Johnson first.
“I’m the highest pound-for-pound fighter that Demetrious Johnson can fight. Neither of those guys are on the pound-for-pound list. Demetrious has already beaten Henry Cejudo. I’m definitely not skipping ahead of him, I already am ahead of him, and so I think I have the profile to fight Demetrious.”
Although Dillashaw is open to the flyweight champion coming up to 135-pounds in order to fight him, Dillashaw feels like he has much more to gain with a victory over Johnson in his natural weigh class.
“I would love to go down to 125 and make it though because he is known as the pound for pound champ. I want to beat him at his weight class. Because otherwise there’s gonna be these excuses that, oh, he had to go up to 135 to fight me, I didn’t beat the real pound for pound champ. I wanna go down and beat the pound for pound champion. He’s got that number one spot, I want to be there. And to do so I gotta beat him at his weight class to be pound for pound (number one). There’ll definitely be excuses if I beat him at 135 that he’s giving up all this weight. So I’m gonna take that equation out of it and drop the weight.”
Check out the full interview in the video above as Dillashaw also talks about expecting his first-born child, Urijah Faber being open to fighting him, Dominick Cruz withdrawing from UFC 219 and the inevitable rematch, Jimmie Rivera and lots more!