Ian McCall Ready to Be Done with Demetrious Johnson and Move On to the Title

Rematches are a tough prospect for any athlete, team or organization in any sport, and it’s no different in mixed martial arts.

If you beat someone, it’s hard to go back and duplicate that same performance a second time. But in the case of the UFC on FX 3 headliner between Ian McCall and Demetrious Johnson, they’re going to fight again on June 8 because a few judges in Australia couldn’t quite add a scorecard.

For the first time ever, the UFC installed a “sudden victory” round for a regular event as the flyweight title tournament kicked off in March in the land down under. Essentially the rule was created as a fail safe so in case one of the two tournament bouts ended in a draw, there would be a final fourth round to determine the winner, that way there would be no delay in the tournament being completed.

Well, the judging error in Australia cost McCall and Johnson the chance to fight in a fourth round because originally Johnson was announced the winner and then hours later it was discovered that the fight should have been a draw.

Needless to say, nobody was happy about the situation.

But now three months later McCall and Johnson will do battle all over again with the winner moving on to the UFC flyweight tournament finals and a date with Joseph Benavidez with the title on the line.

McCall admits that the entire situation was a mess, so at this point he’s just looking forward to getting past this fight and moving on to his ultimate goal.

“I just want this to be over with and done,” McCall said recently when speaking with MMAWeekly Radio.

“This time I want to put a stamp on it, I want to finish the fight and really just get it over with so I can go on and get my title.”

Judging has come under fire on more than a few occasions in the past in MMA, and regardless of the scoring error in Australia, McCall feels there shouldn’t have been a problem at all because he believes he won the fight.

It’s tough to go through a fight like that, feel like you won, and then you are told that it was a draw and you have to do it all over again.

“We have a lot of motivation because I felt I won the fight, he felt he won the fight, and we had all the drama behind it. We put on a great fight the last time and it has it’s ups and downs I guess,” McCall admitted.

If there is one positive that McCall can take away from having to do it all over again is the fact that he did not have even close to his best night when facing Johnson back in March.

“The biggest gaping hole in my performance was my stand-up. I’m a much better kickboxer than I showed. I mean, just watch my earlier fights, I’ve never been outstruck and I was, on the feet at least. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t do the things I should,” said McCall.

“I just have to rough him up. I need to not chase him around, just get a hold of him, and just really beat the crap out of him.”

McCall also believes that he saw the best of Demetrious Johnson that night, and there’s not much more he could see in the rematch.

“I really feel like he gave me all he had. He did everything he could. I think definitely I obviously showed I’m the better grappler, better wrestler, and now I just need to prove that I’m the better striker,” said McCall.

“You should never say ‘this guy can’t knock me out’ but I pretty strongly believe he can’t. Anything can happen in MMA, or just sports like this in general, but I think there’s a pretty good chance after feeling his power he’s never really ever going to be able to knock me out.”

Is McCall right in his assessment of Demetrious Johnson? The only way to know for sure is to watch the rematch on FX June 8.

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