On a night when Jon Jones looked lacklustre, Demetrious Johnson was anything but.
‘Mighty Mouse’ needed less than one round to put away his latest, and arguably last challenger in the flyweight division, as he stopped Henry Cejudo in the co-main event of UFC 197.
A 2008 Olympic gold medallist in freestyle wrestling, Cejudo was widely expected to give the 125lbs champion his toughest test yet. Instead, he joins the flyweight scrapheap as Johnson laid waste to his eighth straight title challenger to move level third in UFC history for consecutive title wins.
For a fighter not yet widely embraced by a mainsteam audience, given his technical brilliance, a move up to challenge Dominick Cruz for another title may well propel him into their consciousness.
But for now, he’s ignoring those calls.
“I’ve never shied away from that fight with Cruz but my biggest goal right now is to break that title defence (streak) of Anderson Silva and I believe I can do it,”
Johnson said of the Brazilian’s record 10-win mark.
“So for me to go off and detour on a different route, it’s really going to have to make me want to do it.”
Johnson wasted little time in defeating Cejudo as an elbow to the face out of the clinch followed by a vicious knee had the challenger wobbled before a flush left hand crumpled him and forced referee John McCarthy to step in.
