T.J. Dillashaw regained his throne which he thought he never lost against former UFC bantamweight champion Cody ‘No Love’ Garbrandt at UFC 217 in November last year.
Immediately Dillashaw started campaigning for a super-fight against #1 ranked pound-for-pound fighter and flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. UFC president Dana White also showed keen interest in the fight however ‘the Mighty Mouse’ showed no interest which never led the fight to be materialized. Dillashaw never really understood the reason why he didn’t get a chance to fight Johnson.
“I don’t really know,” Dillashaw said. “I think that’s a good question for Demetrious Johnson. Maybe he wanted some guaranteed money. Maybe he wasn’t willing to gamble on himself on the pay-per-view numbers. But as far as I was concerned, the fans wanted it, the UFC wanted it. Everyone knows I wanted it. I respect Demetrious Johnson as a person and as an athlete and that’s kind of why I was chasing him down. He’s got that target on his back. He’s got that pound-for-pound spot that I want to come in and take. Not only to make the big bucks on a big fight, but for the legacy. Chasing that spot down. So really I think it’s a question for him why it didn’t really happen.”
“I was chasing that Demetrious Johnson fight,” Dillashaw said. “It just really didn’t seem like it wanted to work itself out. So I feel like the next biggest, hyped up fight was Cody. The one that kind of made the most sense for the attention. There was a lot of drama behind it, so run it back.”
Dillashaw is still looking for the Johnson fight. However understand the fact that he has to go pass Garbrandt first at UFC 227. Johnson co-headlines the same card as he defends his title for the twelfth time against Henry Cejudo.
“He’s got that spot and I’m looking to take it,” Dillashaw said of Johnson. “Our fight is ahead of us that we gotta worry about. And we’ll talk about it after the fight.”
“I would love to do it at ’25, because I don’t want the excuse of me being the bigger man,” he said. “‘Oh, the only reason why he beat me is because he’s bigger than me.’ I can make your weight, I’m not bigger than you.”
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