The ongoing feud between the UFC brass and UFC flyweight kingpin Demetrious Johnson continues this week as UFC President Dana White has now fired back at Mighty Mouse following his lengthy public letter in which he called out the UFC brass for unfair treatment of him throughout negotiations of his next fight.
"My guy Mick [Maynard], who's one of our guys, has been handling that and he said most of what [Demetrious Johnson] said not true", White told TMZ.
In the statement, Johnson called himself "the best fighter in the world and arguably the greatest fighter of all time" and said UFC "chooses not to market" him. Back then, the 47-year-old had a completely different outlook on Johnson's accomplishments: "Listen, he's already the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and he strives to be better each time, and he gets better each time, literally destroying people", White said at the post-fight press conference.
Johnson has yet to accept a fight with Dillashaw and the former bantamweight kingpin believes that "Mighty Mouse" is ruining his legacy by turning down the fight.
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White, who has had run-ins with several champions in the past, also strongly disagrees with Johnson's gripes about the UFC marketing machine. More recently, Johnson has reported he's willing to fight Dillashaw, but that he wants financial guarantees if the latter can't make weight. "Fight somebody that people will actually care about and be interested in, and there you go".
"I think the smartest thing for me to do is stay on the path I'm on now until Demetrious mans up and realizes he's going to ruin his legacy by not taking this fight", Dillashaw said to MMA Junkie. "If you look at what that really means, what pound-for-pound means, Conor doesn't give a [expletive], he'll fight anybody, anywhere, any time and if Demetrious is the best pound-for-pound guy in the world, then fight T.J. Dillashaw".
"That's not true. We've been talking about shutting down the flyweight division for about three years". He knows that we've talked about, you know, doing away with that division. "Never once did I threaten him to shut down the division". He also said White threatened to close the flyweight division, if Johnson doesn't take the bout with Dillashaw. Yeah, that's not true. I told him that we had been talking about shutting down the division for years.
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