Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson 2: Updated Odds, Predictions Before Weigh-in

There is an unusual amount of hostility coming from John "The Magician" Dodson as he prepares to challenge Demetrious "Mighty Mouse"  Johnson for the UFC flyweight title at UFC 191 in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Johnson (21-2-1, 10-1-1 UFC) is the reigning champion and has already defeated Dodson (18-6, 6-1 UFC) once in his career. However, Johnson knows it was one of his toughest fights, having been knocked down by Dodson in the second round before his speed, precision and skill took over and earned the win.

Dodson should feel confident since he has hurt Johnson in the past, but he has been laying into Johnson in the days before the fight.

Dodson let loose with both barrels in an interview with Bleacher Report's Chad Dundas: 

I am going to kick him repeatedly. He’s going to try to shoot, and when he shoots I’m going to stop his takedown, and I’m going to hit him more and more and more until somebody pulls me off of his lifeless corpse. I’m going to dribble his head off the canvas like it’s a basketball and I’m playing in the NBA Finals. I will walk through him and destroy his whole life, his whole meaning and purpose. 

According to Dundas, Dodson also called Johnson bad for the sport because he's unpopular.

This may not be the wisest way to prepare for an opponent who has been winning every battle. Dodson appears to have a puncher's chance, but that's about it. The longer the fight goes, the likelier it is that Johnson's skill in the 125-pound weight class will take over.

According to 5Dimes (h/t Odds Shark), Johnson is a solid favorite with 2-11 odds to win, while Dodson is an underdog with 17-4 odds to win. Those odds indicate that Dodson is doing little more than blustering before the fight.

UFC 191 Staff Predictions: Can Demetrious Johnson continue his remarkable run? http://t.co/aul4ZpVo6f http://pic.twitter.com/LgghF8Rudr

— theScore (@theScore) September 3, 2015

UFC 191 Staff Predictions: Can Demetrious Johnson continue his remarkable run?: Prior to every UFC e... http://t.co/8AjL3pfU5L #mma #ufc

— UFC_News (@_UFC_News_) September 3, 2015

He has a chance to register the upset, but it would almost certainly have to be the result of his ability to land heavy punches in the early going.

That's how he gained the early advantage in 2013, and he almost certainly has to follow the same formula here.

Johnson simply has too many skills. He can grapple, kick and has excellent punch combinations. What has made him so difficult to beat is that he transitions so well between his different techniques. 

I am counting down the days. @ufc 191 #ufc191 https://t.co/FOnBmxQhZ2

— Demetrious Johnson (@MightyMouseUFC) September 3, 2015

That talent has allowed Johnson to dominate, and he appears to have improved more than Dodson since their 2013 meeting.

 

Prediction

Dodson is a strong man with speed, and that's always a dangerous combination. He will be looking to end this fight with a series of big-time strikes.

While Johnson is an excellent all-around fighter, he can be hit. If Dodson can get one or two power punches in early, he has a chance to register an upset—or at least come close to getting it.

Dodson has a problem, however. He tends to fight at long distance and look for opportunities to pick his shots. He is not a volume fighter and may go 20-plus seconds without throwing a punch.

That's going to work out in Johnson's favor. He is going to use his talent as a wrestler and all-around fighter to gain the advantage. He will be in charge by the end of the second round.

Johnson wins by decision.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 191: Johnson vs. Dodson 2 Fight Card, TV Info, Predictions and More

John "The Magician" Dodson will get his second shot at dethroning UFC flyweight champion Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson on Saturday night at UFC 191 in Las Vegas.

The fight headlines a card that also features an important light heavyweight scrap between Anthony "Rumble" Johnson and Jimi "Poster Boy" Manuwa and a suddenly relevant throwback heavyweight scrap between Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski and Frank Mir.

Here's a look at the complete card with predictions and viewing information.

 

Looking to Make the Mouse Disappear

Dodson came the closest to beating Johnson of any of the champion's previous foes at flyweight when the two met in January 2013. Since then, Dodson has battled injuries and fought just three times—though he's won them all.

Things have gone even better for Johnson. He's successfully defended his title five times since beating Dodson by unanimous decision, and he's become arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC. Johnson has had some memorable fights since, but people are still talking about the classic fight with Dodson.

The Magician was able to stun Johnson and land significant strikes early in the fight. That's something no other fighter has been able to do to the champion at flyweight. Johnson ultimately won based on his wrestling and technical acumen, but it was a struggle. Here's how Sherdog.com's Mike Sloan described Johnson and Dodson's first fight: 

Dodson didn’t make too many mistakes in his initial battle with Johnson because the fight wound up being one of the most competitive, most exciting fights the sport of MMA had witnessed in years. It was a perfect storm of two of the best fighters in their division, in their physical primes, fighting tooth and nail for something only one man can have.

What's in store for the fighters and the fans this time around? Much of the same as it pertains to action. Johnson and Dodson are two of the sport's most amazing athletes. The fight will again be fought at a breakneck pace. The difference in this bout will be Johnson's approach.

The champion will look to take the fight to the ground quicker. He's still the much better wrestler of the two, and he's gotten even better than he was when the two men initially fought. Johnson will win again, but this time he'll finish Dodson with a late-round submission that solidifies him as the sport's best fighter.

 

Rumble Will Rip the Poster

You should never attempt to strike with Rumble Johnson. He's too explosive and powerful. Unfortunately, Manuwa seems intent upon standing and fighting on Saturday night.

Per Elias Cepeda of FoxSports.com, Manuwa said: "No one is going to bully me in the cage. I will not be bullied. I will not step back—it is not who I am. We are going to be two trains meeting in the middle of the cage. Let's see who gets pushed back. I'm not the one who is going to take a step backwards."

It's going to be a short fight.

Before Daniel Cormier reminded us that Johnson can still be taken down and submitted by skilled wrestlers, Rumble had won nine straight fights. Six of those wins came via knockout. Johnson has five losses in his career. Four of them have come by rear-naked choke. The proper approach to beating him seems obvious.

Manuwa has just one loss in his career, and that came via TKO to Alexander Gustafsson in March 2014. But Manuwa doesn't appear to have the wrestling skills or the will to take advantage of Johnson's weaknesses. He will attempt to stand and defeat Johnson, but he'll be annihilated in the first round.

 

The Dog Trainer

Arlovski has found a second life in the UFC by scoring controversial and thrilling victories since returning to the promotion. Arlovski was given a gift split-decision victory over Brendan Schaub in June 2014. He followed that win up with two exciting KO victories over Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva and Travis Browne.

Mir has gone through a similar resurgence, as he appeared to be on his last leg in the UFC before scoring back-to-back KO wins over Silva and Todd Duffee. He had lost four fights in a row before his current two-fight winning streak.

Look for Mir to continue his rebirth. Arlovski is a brawler who is at his best when the fight is being contested at a manic pace. Mir has shown he can win that type of fight, but the submissions specialist is even better if he can get the fight to the ground.

Mir will work to keep this fight at the pace he needs. He'll take Arlovski down somewhere in the second round and submit him with an arm hold to grab his third straight victory.

---

Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit Fight Announced: Date, Location and Preview

A thumb injury derailed Robbie Lawler's plans to defend his welterweight title against Carlos Condit at UFC 193, but it didn't take long for the two sides to reschedule their bout. 

According to UFC.com's Thomas Gerbasi, Lawler and Condit are officially scheduled to headline UFC 195 on Jan. 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. 

UFC confirmed the showdown with a post on Instagram: 

No other fights for the UFC 195 card have been announced yet.  

Lawler (26-10) and Condit (30-8) were originally slated to do battle in Melbourne, Australia, but a thumb injury suffered in training by the reigning champion put those plans on hold. UFC 193 is now headlined by a bantamweight championship bout between Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm at Etihad Stadium. 

When the two fighters clash, Lawler, 33, will be looking to extend his UFC winning streak to five after rattling off victories again Jake Ellenberger, Matt Brown and Johny Hendricks before snagging a TKO triumph over Rory MacDonald at UFC 189's co-main event in July. 

Condit, on the other hand, only recently returned to action after suffering a torn ACL during a 2014 loss to Tyron Woodley. However, the 31-year-old didn't disappoint as he downed Thiago Alves in a second-round TKO (doctor's stoppage).   

According to FoxSports.com's Damon Martin, UFC 195 will mark the third time Condit has competed for the welterweight title belt after winning the interim belt in 2012.  

With two of the sport's top strikers finally set to meet in the Octagon, fans should be thrilled that Condit and Lawler were able to make the fight a reality as UFC looks to kick off 2016 in style.  

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Rumble Johnson: 'Who Hasn't Thrown Somebody's Stuff and Talked Trash?'

The past few weeks can't have been all that easy for Anthony Johnson.

The feared UFC light heavyweight, who faces Jimi Manuwa on Saturday night at UFC 191, once again found himself in hot water on August 18 when he posted an ugly, misogynistic rant against an unnamed woman in his gym who'd had the temerity to stretch with her yoga mat where Johnson was trying to lift weights. Johnson threw her yoga mat, yelled at her a bit and then wrote a Facebook post saying that she was built "like a bag of dry dog food." 

The post spread like wildfire, which was to be expected. Johnson has a history of issues with domestic violence, including a 2009 incident that saw Johnson eventually sentenced to three years probation, community service and domestic violence counseling. A civil temporary restraining order was issued against Johnson in 2014, leading to his suspension from the UFC, but the organization reinstated him after the complaint was dismissed by the woman who filed it.

Johnson came out okay in this situation, too. Initially defiant on social media, Johnson apologized. The UFC announced an investigation, eventually expressing their disappointment in Johnson's actions and noting that he would be undergoing counseling and making a donation to a Florida-based women's charity, though no details on what kind of counseling or how big the donation would actually be were ever provided. 

But even after all that, according to Johnson, he's doing just fine. He's not worried, not even a little bit. And, in fact, the recent hubbub was all a media creation, anyway.

"As long as my friends and family know who I am, I sleep well at night. I don't worry about what the media has to say," Johnson says during a UFC 191 media function Thursday. "I'm going to start answering like Marshawn Lynch. 'You know why I'm here.' They're going to say what they want to say. I keep training. I keep fighting and stay focused."

I tell Johnson that surely it must have been a little bit distracting, at least. But he shakes his head adamantly.

"Not even a little bit, man. Whenever I posted my 'rant,' as they called it, I took that upon myself to post it. I'm not afraid of the media because they're going to say what they want to say, anyway," he says.

"I didn't attack anybody. All I did was throw a yoga mat and talk some trash," he continues. "Who hasn't thrown somebody's stuff out of the way and talked trash? I'm just a public figure, and they want to make an example out of me. That's fine with me. I'm not perfect. Show me somebody that hasn't talked trash about somebody and put it on Facebook. It just happened to be me, and they want to say what they want to say. Like I said, I sleep well at night."

Sleeping well at night is a thing Johnson keeps going back to, especially when asked how all of this has affected his mindset.

"I'm not worried about it. I sleep well at night. I have a nice comfy bed. I have awesome friends. I sleep well at night," Johnson says. Again. "Yes, I was wrong for saying the things that I said. But I have already apologized, and everybody knows that. Life goes on. If people want to talk about it and whatnot, go right ahead. I still sleep well at night."

I ask Johnson how long, in his estimation, did it take for someone from his management or the UFC offices to reach out to him and say, hey Anthony, perhaps this is not the best time to be posting rants against women on Facebook? Maybe?

Johnson says it was within one hour that his manager Glenn Robinson called him and told him to take the post down, but he was not inclined to agree with the suggestion.

"I'm like, Glenn, it's already up. It's already out there. You know how it is once you hit that send button, it's out there. I'm like, Glenn, I'm not embarrassed by anything that I said," Johnson says. "Do I regret it? No.

"It's a lesson learned. But I am sorry. I felt bad for what I said. Nobody deserves to be talked about like that. Once again, I was mad. And that was it. So I apologized to her like a man, I admitted to her that I was wrong like a man. I kept living life like a man."

Johnson says that he saw the woman two or three days after the incident started. He was in the gym, stretching (in the area where you are supposed to stretch, it must be noted by the author, so as not to have his yoga mat thrown across the room by an angry weightlifter), and when he came to the edge of the artificial turf area during his warm-up, he saw her standing there.

According to Johnson, he walked up, offered a handshake and said he was sorry.

"She said she was sorry, too. It was over with. She didn't make a big stink about it. The media made a big stink about it," he says. "She understood that when you're mad, you say things. She accepted my apology, and I accepted hers.

"At the end of the day, we were both in the wrong. I was just dumb enough to put it on social media."

 

Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 191: Bleacher Report Main Card Staff Predictions

On Saturday, we, MMA fans, are going down to the crossroads.

How good is Demetrious Johnson? How good is John Dodson? Do we enjoy watching flyweights, like, in any capacity? 

If this rematch between the UFC's longest-tenured undisputed champ and the challenger who came closest to beating him doesn't turn the people out, then nothing will at the 125-pound division. After Saturday, we'll know something about ourselves—something real and irreversible. And we shan't be able to return to these crossroads forever. Forever!

That's the key storyline of UFC 191. But this main card goes five deep, and there's intrigue at each spot. Here to help you make your choices is our Bleacher Report staff predictions team: Craig Amos, Steven Rondina, Nathan McCarter, Jonathan Snowden and myself, Scott Harris. Let's get it on.

Begin Slideshow