Demetrious Johnson Says He’s Happy People Keep Calling Him Out

In an interview with MMA Junkie, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson (26-2-1 MMA, 14-1-1 UFC) spoke about the fighters who keep calling him out for fights. His next defense is against Ray Borg (11-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) at UFC 215. It happens Saturday at the Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If Johnson is successful, he will surpass Anderson Silva to have the most UFC title defenses in a row ever, with eleven. Here are highlights:

On people who challenge him: “Everybody keeps throwing my name out of their mouth. And for me, I’m just focused on doing what I do best and cleaning out my division. But everybody in the UFC, everybody in the world, they say, ‘He’s the most boring fighter. He doesn’t sell any pay-per-views.’ But everyone keeps wanting to fight me. I don’t understand why they keep saying that. That makes me happy that everybody keeps bring up my name. If that was to happen, we’ll all sit down like men and negotiate, whether that would be at 125 or 135, whose title is defended. … It’s all about negotiating.”

On approaching the tiebreaker win: “A friend of mine said, ‘You know, 10, that’s attainable. Eleven, that’s attainable.’ He goes, ’15 is (expletive) legendary. Why don’t you just go for 15?’ You know what? Why not? I mean, I’m 31 years old. I feel good. You’ve got a lot of new, young, up-and-coming guys coming into the division. So why not keep on doing it as long as I can? It’s not like 135 is going anywhere. When I get to 35, 36, 37 years old, when I’m tired of dieting … then I’ll go to 135. Right now I’m focused on setting the record as high as I can. And then if the money is right, we can go up to 135 and let’s make it happen.”