The new ONE FC flyweight champion, and former UFC flyweight champion, Demetrious Johnson, reminded the world why he is routinely ranked among the greatest MMA fighters to ever do it. Johnson delivered a brutal flying knee knockout in a rematch with Adrian Moraes to claim the ONE FC flyweight championship, and discussed how he landed the landmark knockout at 36 years old on The MMA Hour. Johnson described the finish – the same one Moraes finished him with in the past – as “perfect”.
“The biggest regret I have in my career is not filming any of my upbringing in MMA, and the reason I say that is, what you saw, that finishing sequence, is what I deal with every single time I spar Matt [Hume, Johnson’s coach]. That’s how he moves.
Demetrious Johnson Breaks Down Iconic ONE FC Title Win
Angles, lining up the knee, landing the knee — not to my face, to my stomach — that’s how he moves. That’s stuff that I learned from him my whole entire career. When I’m drilling, I’m sparring, or he’s teaching, ‘Oh, that knee was too soon. That knee was too late. That knee was perfect.’
That’s just the training I’ve done over the years where Matt’s like, ‘You’ve got to wait for the right time and boom, you land it.’
It’s trying to be perfect and that sequence was pretty much — bop-bop-boom, and then boom — that was money. That sequence, I would say, that’s perfect.” Demetrious Johnson, now eyeing the tail end of his illustrious career, described his preparation for the knockout.
“One of the biggest things going into this camp, Matt [Hume] told me, ‘Dude, we can be the same DJ that you’ve always shown, or we can show what you really do in the gym. You’re athletic enough to do stuff like that. You’re athletic enough to be quick. You are quick. But when you’re like these [hands up], you’re not quick.’ So that was a little bit of it,” Johnson said on The MMA Hour. “But I’m just at the point of my career where I’m just having fun.
Even when I lost the first time against Adriano, I did all the media obligations, told them all, ‘Dude, I got caught with the uppercut and blasted in the face with a f****** knee. What can you do?’ But this one, I was on the better end of it, giving him the knee. Nothing but respect to Adriano. I’m just grateful I was able to go out there and showcase a different skill set.”
Will we see Demetrious Johnson on another legendary title run? Let us know in the comments.
