Demetrious Johnson says he will never fight at 125lbs again: “It’s just not healthy”

ONE Championship’s Demetrious Johnson, the greatest flyweight MMA fighter of all time, says he will never fight at 125lbs again.

Johnson is the undisputed GOAT of 125lbs. He was the long-time flyweight champion in the UFC and he’s carried his talents over to ONE Championship, where he hopes to fight out the rest of his career. In ONE Championship there are more weight-cutting regulations, so the flyweight title in ONE is actually contested at 135lbs. That means that the fighters don’t have to cut as much weight. ONE implemented this rule change several years ago in an effort to curb massive and potentially fatal weight cuts.

Speaking to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani ahead of his upcoming flyweight title fight against champion Andriano Moraes, Johnson said that he will never fight at 125lbs again. “Mighty Mouse” said that such a big weight cut at this point in his career — he’s 34 years old — would be unhealthy. Therefore, he won’t make the big cut to 125 again.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m not cutting back to 125lbs, I’ll tell you that right now. No,” Johnson said. “I feel like my body works better just naturally. Like if I’m walking around at 138lbs and I have no fat on me and I’m shredded as is right now, to cut down to 125lbs, it’s just not healthy for the liver. I’m getting older now.”

If that concludes Johnson’s run as a true 125lbs flyweight then he already has the title of GOAT locked up for a long time. There are fighters like Deiveson Figueiredo who could potentially challenge Johnson’s throne at 125lbs in the future, but Figueiredo still needs some more big wins before he’s in the same conversation. He, too, could also run into a weight-cutting issue as he gets older considering he’s 32 years old. For now, it’s Johnson in the driver’s seat.

What do you think about Demetrious Johnson never fighting at 125lbs again?