John Dodson didn’t do much to make people get excited for him to get a title shot in a unanimous decision win over Zach Makovsky. Luckily for him, there weren’t any better options.
UFC president Dana White told UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani that Dodson will get the next flyweight title shot against Demetrious Johnson. No date has been decided yet, though. Johnson would like to fight at UFC 191 on Sept. 5 in Las Vegas, he told Helwani.
Dodson (17-6) returned from ACL surgery against Makovsky at UFC 187 in May and didn’t look quite like himself. Some even had Makovsky winning on the cards.
Dodson, 30, does have a good enough résumé to earn the shot, though. The Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA product as won three straight and his only loss since 2009 came against Johnson in January 2013. In that fight, Dodson won the first two rounds on the scorecards of two judges before Johnson rallied for the victory.
Johnson (22-2-1) is coming off a dominant fifth-round submission of Kyoji Horiguchi at UFC 186 in April. He has never lost a fight at 125 pounds and hasn’t been defeated since 2011 against Dominick Cruz at bantamweight.