Demetrious Johnson responds to TJ Dillashaw’s callout, Dillashaw responds

Unfortunate news surfaced Friday afternoon that Cody Garbrandt had been dealing with a back tear, and would be heading to Germany to undergo yet another procedure in order to help his back recover in time for the fight.

While UFC President Dana White is extremely confident in the procedure Garbrandt will go through in Germany, and isn’t concerned with Garbrandt potentially missing the fight, he did reveal that the backup plan for TJ Dillashaw is to fight UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson.

Johnson spoke to MMAFighting to discuss the fight, revealing that he isn’t exactly interested in a scrap with Dillashaw:

“There’s other challengers in the division with more wins and on a winning streak,” he said. “This wouldn’t be a super-fight because TJ is not a champion. He’s just a 135er coming down to 125 to skip the line that other flyweight competitors have worked hard to climb. Now, if he was a champion, there’d be something there.”

Dillashaw then responded to Demetrious Johnson’s reluctance to fight him, saying:

“First off, I believe Joseph Benavidez is the rightful contender. Since he is out with an injury and it looks like I’m out of a fight as well, timing is presenting the opportunity to fight the best pound-for-pound and stop him from breaking records.

“He needs to understand that this will be his biggest fight possible to make the most money, since he was so worried about making money after his last fight. I have tons of respect for DJ as a fighter and a person. I’m not trying to talk trash, I just want to fight the best. Let’s glove up and make us some serious money. No one wants to see him fight someone he’s beaten or never heard of to break the record. He’s the pound-for-pound king so let’s make this interesting.”

on 5/13/2017.