One of the hardest punchers in the MMA sport today is John Dodson.
Even though Dodson is not that tall, with only standing 5-foot-3 in height, he can throw punches strong enough that many middleweight fighters could dream off. And even though “The Magician” doesn’t have a world championship, he is confident to say that he is the best fighter in the industry at 125 pounds.
He almost had the MMA title, but he allowed current champ Demetrious Johnson win when they met in the octagon a couple of years ago.
This time around, Dodson says that if he will be given the same chance to fight “Mighty Mouse” at UFC 191 like what he had at UFC on Fox 6, he promises to beat the champ once and for all. When they fought last time, Dodson had hit Johnson with a right hand in the first round, managed to get Johnson down during the second round, and threw a lot of solid shots during the entire last round, but it still wasn’t enough. Johnson still went home with the title.
“I missed the opportunity [of] knocking his head off. I messed up with a few shots that I missed on, but I dropped him and I should have capitalized on it. I can admit that Demetrious was a tough opponent. So my opportunity is just to capitalize on every mistake that he makes,” Dodson said.
In reality, Dodson didn’t really committed too many mistakes with his first bout with Johnson because their fight actually ended up to be one of the most exciting and highly competitive bouts the MMA industry has ever witnessed. Both fighters were at the top of their game in terms of ability and physical condition. Sadly, only one fighter had to be the winner in this epic battle.
But this is not what Dodson was thinking. He thinks that the only thing he did wrong during the bout was he didn’t bring his MMA fighting skills to the highest level, and he put Johnson too high on the pedestal. Dodson also admitted that he this is the first time that he did that and he won’t do it again, ever. He won’t give the same regard for the champ this coming UFC 191 main event as well.
“Everyone saw me with a vicious intent or my killer instinct when I knocked out T.J. Dillashaw, Darrell Montague and everyone else I put down. I didn’t show that same type of intensity or level of killer instinct, I guess, to Demetrious Johnson. I showed, I guess, I had way too much respect for him in that fight. And the one coming up I want to make sure that I see Demetrious as just another fighter and not as the champion. This time I’m not going to let it go to the judges. I’m going to go balls to the wall and I hope DJ is willing to do the same thing,” Dodson said.
Dodson is also confident that he will be a better MMA champ than Demetrious and he ready to conquer the industry.
“Everyone wants to sit there and cheer for a character. We’re in the business of entertaining, not just being a good fighter. There are a million good fighters out there but they just don’t make it to this level. Everyone likes my face anyway. They already say I’m the greatest of all time, so why not? They already forgot about DJ,” he said.