When John Dodson sees Demetrious Johnson sitting at No. 3 among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the UFC, he gets a little upset. It gets worse when his eyes travel just a little further down the list. T.J. Dillashaw is now ranked at No. 5.
Back in 2011, Dodson defeated Dillashaw via first-round knockout. He also has given Johnson his toughest test in a flyweight title defense, in 2013. Yet Dodson’s name is nowhere to be found on that pound-for-pound ranking.
“I’ve already destroyed [Dillashaw] and he’s talking about how he should be up on the pound-for-pound list,” Dodson said at a recent UFC 191 media lunch in Los Angeles. “These guys are all just frustrating me and just bothering me, because I am better than both of them.”
Dodson (17-6) has just one loss in the UFC, to Johnson, but perhaps does not get the respect he has rightfully earned. “The Magician” is arguably the best finisher in the flyweight division. He’ll get a chance to make the biggest mark possible in a rematch with Johnson in the main event of UFC 191 on Sept. 5 in Las Vegas.
After that, the Albuquerque, N.M., native plans on going back up to bantamweight in the near future and challenging its champion, Dillashaw. Dodson, 30, was not all too impressed with Dillashaw’s win over Renan Barao at UFC on FOX 16.
“I thought it was very boring,” Dodson said. “It wasn’t because T.J. didn’t go out there and put on a spectacular show. I knew T.J. Dillashaw was capable of doing that. Renan Barao, on the other hand, I knew wasn’t going to be there for that fight.
“It took you this long to finish [Barao]? It took you four rounds to go ahead and finish this guy. … I would have finished Renan Barao in the first round.”
Dodson thinks Barao’s game has deteriorated due to his hard weight cuts and the erosion of his confidence. Dillashaw beat Barao the first time, taking his bantamweight belt at UFC 173 in May 2014, with a fifth-round TKO.
“He’s not gonna be the same fighter as he once was, because he’s not that man anymore,” Dodson said of Barao. “He’s not that killer that came out destroying people, dancing, willing to stand and bang and do all the crazy stuff that he once did.”
Dodson acknowledges that Dillashaw has improved since the two fought three years, but doesn’t think those improvements would change the result. Dodson is still targeting becoming the UFC’s first three-division champion — titles at flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight.
“I already beat him,” Dodson said. “I beat him at his specialty, that he can move around and hit you. T.J. Dillashaw is only good when he can hit you against the cage and that’s the only time he’ll ever dominate a real fighter.”
According to Dodson, there is evidence there with Dillashaw’s performance against late fill-in Joe Soto at UFC 177. Soto hung around until the fifth round with Dillashaw and didn’t do too badly. In his next fight, Soto was knocked out in under two minutes by Anthony Birchak in June.
“I don’t know why they didn’t give the title shot to [Birchak], because that would have been a better fight,” Dodson said with a laugh.
The Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA product feels like he didn’t get to show everyone his potential in a unanimous decision win over Zach Makovsky at UFC 187 in May. It was Dodson’s first fight back from ACL surgery and, to make things worse, Makovsky is a good friend and former training partner.
Dodson warns that next time he faces a friend in the Octagon, things will go very differently. He won’t make the same mistake of being timid again.
“You are going to be obliterated, and I’m going to splatter your blood across the canvas,” Dodson said. “And I’m going to show everybody why I’m awesome.”