“Mighty Mouse” did a live reaction video for a “Victims of Dana White” YouTube video, sharing some interesting stories about his truly unique experience.
Demetrious Johnson is opening up on his largely futile quest to secure pay-per-view (PPV) points on his contract while fighting for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
“Mighty Mouse” was the UFC’s first-ever Flyweight champion, defending his belt a stunning 11 times between 2012 and 2018. That’s earned him a lot of love among hardcore mixed martial arts (MMA) fans who consider him a legitimate contender for “Greatest Of All Time” status.
Unfortunately, that appreciation never translated into mainstream draw power. For that reason, Johnson had a real hard time securing PPV points other UFC champions received the moment they won the gold.
“I fought and fought and fought, they specifically said we do not give pay-per-view points to flyweight guys,” Johnson said in a new YouTube video. “They said that to me, and that’s why I took the $125,000 [to show] and $50,000 [to win contract] after I beat Joseph Benavidez in [2013] the second time, when I knocked him out.
“I went through my whole contract as champion,” Johnson added. “I got to re-negotiate, ‘I want pay-per-view points,’ [Dana White] says, ‘We don’t give it to you guys.’”
Johnson finally got a one-time PPV point deal when he fought Henry Cejudo for the second time in 2018. That bout was UFC 227’s co-main event under a T.J. Dillashaw vs. Cody Garbrandt Bantamweight title fight, but the two-belt PPV still only sold a reported 300,000 buys.
That’s better than two previous “Mighty Mouse”-led events, which barely broke 100,000.
“I had a lot of amazing things in my career, it’s true,” Johnson said. “But, it never really did translate over into the mainstream media. I was on the top best plays on ESPN. I saw ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley on ESPN this morning at the gym. I had the same type of media exposure, but it just didn’t translate over to the pPPV buys. I don’t know why it never did, but it’s always something we’ll be wondering why it didn’t.”
You could chalk that one up to a low opinion of Flyweight as a division among fans in general. It seems crazy in retrospect, but back in 2015 there were real questions as to whether the lighter weight classes like Featherweight, Bantamweight and Flyweight would ever catch on.
In fact, UFC flirted with shutting down the 125-pound division for years, and Dana White didn’t hesitate to talk s— about its miserable draw with Johnson as champion. Then, in a rare and seemingly historic move, Johnson was “traded” to ONE Championship for Ben Askren back in 2018.
“Mighty Mouse” noted that this kind of bashing didn’t help any fighters trying to win over the general public.
“You don’t want to bury the champion after he’s trying to defend his belt and build his star,” he said. “If the CEO of the company is bashing one of the champions, the fans — if Dana White says Bud Light’s delicious, everyone and their mom is gonna think Bud Light is delicious. I’m just saying whatever the CEO says about the athletes and the company, people are going to believe it who aren’t educated.
“Here’s the thing: I have nothing against Dana White,” Johnson concluded. “I am a man who’s happy, I’ve been successful, I believe in my skillset, I believe I am one of the best flyweights to ever walk the earth and I don’t think there’ll be another person who can achieve what I have in the flyweight division. North America, Asia, anywhere. I feel confident saying that, and I’m happy to say it.”
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