If you ask UFC president Dana White, bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw vs. flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is all but official. But if you ask MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani, there’s a long way before that superfight is a done deal.
White said at the UFC 218 post-fight press conference on Saturday night in Detroit that Dillashaw vs. Johnson is 100 percent next, and that the promotion simply “didn’t announce it yet.”
“No, that fight’s gonna happen,” White said of Dillashaw vs. Johnson when asked what Johnson’s next steps are. “Yeah, that fight will happen.”
So that means that after his dominant UFC 218 win over Sergio Pettis, Henry Cejudo won’t get another crack at “Mighty Mouse” just yet, right?
Well, not so fast.
According to Helwani, Dillashaw vs. Johnson is “nowhere near done,” and only what the UFC currently wants.
White has wanted to book Dillashaw vs. Johnson since the summer, well before Johnson tapped out Ray Borg at UFC 216 in October to break the record for UFC title defenses — and well before Dillashaw recaptured the 135-pound belt with a second-round knockout over Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217 last month.
But Johnson didn’t want to accept the bout because of a number of issues he had with the promotion, along with the fact that Dillashaw had never fought at flyweight (and still hasn’t) and there was the possibility of him not making weight.
Johnson claims Dana tried to “bully me in the media as well as in private” to initially accept a new UFC contract to fight Borg, then to suddenly take the Dillashaw fight at the time.
After a public back-and-forth with White, the longtime champ indeed ended up fighting Borg. And now with the title-defense record in his hands and the bantamweight title around Dillashaw’s waist, Dillashaw vs. Johnson seems more likely.
But of course, depending who you believe, it’s still a ways away from being set in stone.