Cody Garbrandt’s team still wants Mighty Mouse

On November 4, in the co-main event of the stacked UFC 217, UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt will attempt to defend his title against his most heated rival in TJ Dillashaw. If Garbrandt successfully defends his title, the expectation is that he’ll then turn his attention to the next contender on the docket – perhaps the winner of Jimmie Rivera and Dominic Cruz’s UFC 219 scrap.

Apparently, however, Garbrandt’s team is still eying a drop to flyweight for a battle with dominant UFC flyweight champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. Garbrandt’s head coach Justin Buchholz shared the plan on Five Rounds podcast.

“For sure, [Cody] can do it right now,” he said (h/t Jed Meshew of MMAFighting.com). He’s real big and strong right now and he’s getting bigger so he’s gotta do it right now if he does go down. For sure, [Demetrious Johnson] is a fight that we would love to have but we’ll just see about getting his body down to 125 [pounds].”

“I’m confident that can happen,” he continued. “That’s nothing. I’ve seen a lot harder things than that. Cody can make that weight and keep his power and put the weight back on and go back to ‘35 at this point in his career, while he’s young. We know the dangers of switching weight classes and whatnot with Roy Jones Jr. and you can see the stuff with B.J. Penn. We know what we’re doing here. Everything’s a science now. You’ve got to be on top of your game so you can get the correct people and set the right systems in place. We can do it old school so that’s why I’m confident with all the new school stuff it’d be even easier.”

How do you think Cody Garbrandt would do against Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/28/2017.