John Dodson says he offered to fight Tony Ferguson at UFC 209

Over the weekend, when the UFC touched down in Nashville, Tennessee, two-time flyweight title challenger John Dodson picked up a nice, decision win over former bantamweight title challenger Eddie Wineland. With this win, he reestablished himself as one of the bantamweight division’s elite players, and set himself up for some more big fights in the division. Apparently, however, Dodson has had a very difficult time finding willing dance partners of late.

“When I put people to sleep, no one wants to fight me,” Dodson said post-fight (via MMAFighting.com). “When I fight intelligently, no one still wants to fight me. I don’t know what they want me to do.”

“I’ve been trying to fight every single month and everybody still says’ no’…”

He continued:

“I just saw that Raphael Assuncao is gonna fight Marlon Moraes, the World Series [of Fighting] champion coming into the UFC finally. I’ve been wanting to fight this dude for a while but Raphael Assuncao is gonna sit there and pass up on me three times: Aljamain [Sterling] got hurt out in Albany, then I tried fighting him in Denver, and then I tried fighting him now and he still said no because… I don’t know if his balls haven’t dropped, he’s getting old, he’s getting hurt, he don’t want to deal with somebody that can actually crack him with speed? I know he’s getting old but we’re probably the same age and I can still see all the punches coming at me. It could be accounted to the fact that I don’t take a lot of abuse but I believe that everybody who is willing to be on the top should be saying ‘Yes.’”

Dodson then made the surprising claim that he offered to step in against streaking lightweight contender Tony Ferguson when Khabib Nurmagomedov pulled out of their scheduled UFC 209 interim lightweight title fight at the last minute.

“I even tried fighting Tony Ferguson when Khabib didn’t make weight,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m flying in Dana. I’m weighing 156. I’ll make weight right now.’ Granted, I got called an idiot, but I was willing to take the fight. Somebody had to say yes. If people in higher weight classes are still gonna tell me no, I guess I’m just a terrorizer in every weight class.”

Why do you think John Dodson has such a difficult time finding fights? Sound off, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/24/2017.