John Dodson: I watch my title fight with Demetrious Johnson every day
After nearly a year away from competition, due to an ACL injury, flyweight contender John Dodson is scheduled to return to action May 23 at UFC 187 against his friend, Zach Makovsky. The smiling fighter is on a two-fight win streak but three fights ago had his most impressive performance ever in a losing effort to champion Demetrious Johnson.
Johnson, who just submited Kyojo Horiguchi at the very last second of their UFC 186 main event in Montreal, has won eight straight fights, including his 2013 win over Dodson. He has also submitted back-to-back opponents.
The dominant and exciting champion has not yet become one of the biggest stars in the UFC. However, his fight with Dodson did excellent ratings on free FOX ratings.
It was also one of his most challenging fights, in recent years. Appearing on The MMA Hour, this week, Dodson said that, with the right opponent (namely, him), "Mighty Mouse" can indeed pull big numbers.
"I look at it this way, when me and Demetrious fought for the title in Chicago on FOX, we brought in the best and the most views ever. 7.7 million viewers watching our fight. So people want to sit there and say they don't watch flyweights, well, I had 7.7 million people watching that fight on FOX for free, and I can guarantee you that we can do it again," he said.
"People love the fact that I'm so sporadic and they would want to see him lose, so I'd [be doing a favor] for everybody that gets to hate on him. As far as smiling and this Chuckie Cheese attitude of mine, everybody wants to sit there and downplay, 'Oh, he's just too hyper, he's like a kid, he's like a cartoon. He shouldn't be in the UFC.' Well, I'm knocking people out with a little with this Chuckie Cheese smile of mine, and with Demetrious Johnson being so flat, I'll be the most vocal person in the UFC."
Though the two rivals don't usually have many good things to say about one another, Dodson did admit that it isn't quite Johnson's fault that he doesn't always attract the most attention "It does take two to tango," he said.
"It's not just Demetrious having to do all the work. He doesn't have the right opponent. If people want to care about the flyweights, they need to care, they need to be invested into it. If we want to sell pay-per-views, both of us have to sell it, not just one of us."
Of course, Dodson believes that he is the man to help Johnson get attention. More than that, he knows that he pushed the champ closer to defeat than he's been, and he also knows that he can improve upon that effort, should they meet again.
"I watched [his fight with Johnson] last night, I ain't going to lie," Dodson revealed.
"I watch it every single day. It's not because of the fact that I want to sit there and dwell and hate the guy. It's like, he's my motivation right now. It's not me motivating myself to hate the guy. I'm motivating myself to be something better than him. I want to make sure I go ahead and [understand what people were] saying about me, that I was too slow, that I got tired. I want to be able to go back and correct the mistakes that I had before."
