Demetrious Johnson criticizes UFC for promoting ‘too many’ fight cards

UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson feels like the UFC’s schedule of events is getting a little too busy. Speaking to the media during a recent scrum for his UFC 215 battle with Ray Borg, Johnson explained that he feels his upcoming fight hasn’t been properly promoted, and he believes that’s because the UFC has overextended itself.

“It’s so damn hard, there’s so many UFC fights,” the champ said during his media scrum (h/t MMA Fighting). “I was literally having breakfast and I was talking to one of the guys who works for UFC and I was like yo, you guys just got back from Rotterdam, are you getting ready to go back home to Las Vegas and relax?”

“He was like ‘No, I’m going to Pittsburgh.’ Pittsburgh? I’m like there’s a fight card next Saturday? He goes ‘Yeah!’ There’s just too many back to back, back to back, back to back. 16 [events] in 18 weeks. There’s just too many, you know?”

“I think for the UFC, maybe next year they’ll sit down and rethink things, but I dunno, I’m not part of the marketing team, the PR team of the UFC. But for me, they’ve got a big fight coming up which is Madison Square Garden. So for example, at the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight they promoted UFC 217 at MSG when they had UFC 215 coming up and UFC 216 coming up.”

“So they took a chance, like ‘Hey I gotta promote UFC 215, promote UFC 216, we’re gonna skip both of those and promote a promo for UFC 217. So when they’re doing stuff like that, it’s like … you gotta look at what they’re gonna do. And that’s fine. I’m not part of that team. As for me, I would have shown UFC 215 because that’s the next thing coming up, what I would have focused on selling.”

What do you think of these criticisms from the flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson? Is he right?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/7/2017.