LAS VEGAS — There was a time when Demetrious Johnson, the UFC’s reigning flyweight champion, mostly kept his mouth shut.
He garnered a reputation as a quiet and humble fighter who never rocked the boat. He said the right things at the right time. He was a nice guy who used nice language and was perhaps the kind of fighter you could use as an example for your friends who don’t watch mixed martial arts, as if to say: Hey, look at this guy. Not every fighter is a meat head. Look how nice he is!
Those days appear to be over. Don’t get me wrong; Johnson is still a very nice man. He is still someone you can hold up as a perfect example of how regular people exist in the zany world of mixed martial arts.
But Johnson had a conversation with Dave Sholler, the UFC vice president of public relations, who told him to stop editing himself and the things he says. He told him to lose the filter, to say what’s on his mind and to use the language he uses in his everyday life.
Johnson needed to be himself.
Johnson also looked around the UFC landscape and came to a realization. He saw other UFC stars facing legal troubles, and nothing happened to them. Most of them kept their jobs. If he started talking the way he does in his everyday life, sprinkling curse words in his answers, what’s the worst that could happen?
“That’s why I’m not editing myself any more. What’s [UFC President] Dana [White] going to do? He can call me and say I need to watch it,” Johnson says. “But hey, I’m not doing f—–g cocaine. I’m not out here smoking weed. I’m at home taking care of my wife and my kids. I’m not breaking the law. I’m just giving interviews.”
Johnson has long been lambasted for having what fans perceive as a boring personality. In a world where bombastic characters like Conor McGregor draw massive numbers on television and pay-per-view, Johnson has mostly been quiet, preferring to let his work in the Octagon do the talking for him.
He doesn’t really participate in the act of selling fights, and the results show: His pay-per-view numbers are among the lowest for any UFC champion.
Still, Johnson refuses to change. He believes he is the best fighter in the world and that being the best fighter in the world should be enough to entice fans to watch. Anyone who watches him and makes the assumption that he has a boring personality is dead wrong, he says.
“That’s because you don’t f—–g know me. You’re not my friend. Nobody here knows me like my best friend at home. We might not even know the real Conor McGregor. He might be shy. Someone said Renan Barao is very shy. I would never figure him being shy,” he says. “But you would never know that, because you don’t truly know that person. Just because a person has the personality to sell a fight, that’s not his personality. That’s just him doing his job to make more money.”
The funny part about Johnson dropping the Mr. Nice Guy facade he’s carried for years? He’s far more likely to connect with fans. They may have a bias against smaller fighters, and they might consider him boring in the Octagon.
But mixed martial arts fans have always gravitated to those who speak their mind and who don’t try to filter their words or present themselves as somebody they are not. It’s how Dana White became one of the biggest stars in the history of the sport, despite never once fighting in the cage.
It is funny how things can work. Johnson, a phenom in the cage, hasn’t been all that interesting outside of it. But this new version of Mighty Mouse, where he answers questions without hesitation and without regard for consequences?
He’s intriguing. He’ll connect with fans more than ever before.
And all it took was deciding to be himself, because the real Johnson is far more interesting than anything he could ever pretend to be.
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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