Demetrious Johnson: Loved by Few, Hated by Fewer

“That ‘Mickey Mouse’ Johnson sure is a cute little feller. You guys ready to leave?”

Sitting on my barstool in an environment full of booze, Buffalo wings and overinflated egos, I immediately turned around to see a large group of people, spearheaded by a lady who looked to be in her 20s, getting up and leaving before the main event.

UFC 174 was a decent fight card on paper, featuring fighters like Rory MacDonald, Tyron Woodley, Ryan Bader, Andrei Arlovski and Brendan Schaub. But the meat and potatoes was the flyweight title bout between Demetrious Johnson and Ali Bagautinov, a top contender from a year ago.  

Ignoring the “retired pro fighters” shadow sparring next to me, my eyes lingered on the now vacant tables several seconds longer. Why would anyone leave before the main event, especially a UFC title fight?

On paper, Johnson is the best all-around fighter in MMA. The guy can literally do it all—wrestling, boxing, clinch strikes, submissions. Not to mention he has the speed and technical IQ of a real-life superhero. Call the man Barry Allen because his speed is second to none.

Yet, here we were minutes away from his title fight, and the number of empty plates and beer pitchers were starting to rival people. Maybe it was the nickname. The lady did call him Mickey Mouse after all.

And then it finally hit me, after brainstorming “Mighty Panda” as a possible nickname. While Johnson has all of the attributes of an exciting fighter, people aren’t emotionally invested in seeing him fight.

Fans would much rather drop $60 to see Ronda Rousey tear off an arm in 14 seconds than pay for a Johnson fight.

Rousey, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva and Conor McGregor—we all get the same butterflies in our stomachs every time these individuals compete. It’s that bubbly feeling of excitement, like we are witnessing something on a grand scale. All of the misplaced cheering and drunken obscenities—even the shadow sparring—being displayed at the restaurant for fighters like MacDonald and Arlovski mimicked those feelings.

When speaking with reporters, per MMAFighting.com, Johnson claimed MMA was the only sport where “it all falls on the athlete.”

“When I got into this sport, I thought all I had to do was beat people and finish fights and everything else would take care of itself,” Johnson said.

Beating people and finishing fights is exactly what Johnson has been doing as of late. He has defended his UFC title five consecutive times and finished three of his last four opponents. Still, fans are reportedly skipping out of the arena ahead of his fights to miss traffic.

On Saturday night, a pay-per-view card will once again be headlined by a Johnson flyweight title fight. This time, the 125-pound king is taking on Kyoji Horiguchi, a talented fighter rushed into the title shot, mostly due to the UFC running out of fresh contenders for Johnson.

Stephane Patry, a fight promoter and manager, told Ariel Helwani during an appearance on The MMA Hour that many fans in Montreal, the venue for UFC 186, don’t even know there’s a UFC event on Saturday. A large part of the problem is obviously lackluster promotion, but Johnson’s minimal marketability as a world champion also comes to light.

We won’t pull an Ian McCall here and compare Johnson’s personality to a “coffee mug.” There is something unique about every person in the world, but instead of opening up to fans, Johnson is seemingly reading from a teleprompter, cued up by a solid PR agent. It’s contrite and boring, and no one is particularly moved by anything he says.

There is an obsession in the sports culture with being loved and admired that athletes sometimes trap themselves within themselves. But on the other side of the fence, in the real world, we aren’t loved by everyone. If you open yourself up as an individual, someone out there is going to dislike you for it.

It’s an everyday occurrence in the real world, and people buy into what they perceive as real. Jones, McGregor and Rousey are three of the most criticized fighters in MMA, but they are also three of the richest. They aren’t afraid of being themselves in front of a microphone and camera, whether people love them for it or not.

Johnson is loved by few and hated by fewer because fans don’t know him. He generally treats his job like an assembly man working on a line to make ends meet. Rain, sleet or snow—he shows up to work, does his job, punches his card and goes home.

Unless you’re leaving opponents unconscious in a pile of their own excrement, like Silva or Fedor Emelianenko, the solemn warrior front generally doesn’t go over well. Showmanship is an integral part of fighting. It has been for years.

If Johnson continues to treat fighting like an everyday job, the UFC and fans will continue to treat him like an everyday employee.

 

Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com