Demetrious Johnson isn't scared of 'TUF 24' winner's title shot: 'I just don't care'

Demetrious Johnson may be a lot of things, but scared of a challenge from the winner of “TUF 24” is not one of them, the flyweight champion said.

Earlier this month, the UFC announced the winner of the season would receive a title shot on the live season finale. That was news to Johnson (23-2-1 MMA, 11-1-1 UFC), the current 125-pound champion who puts his belt on the line against Henry Cejudo (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) on Saturday at UFC 197.

Johnson’s surprise at the news struck some as anger. Instead, he told MMAjunkie at a recent media luncheon, it was the result of frustration at finding out the news through fans via his live video game channel on Twitch.

“I loaded the Twitch, I start streaming and people come in there – and I’m pretty active with my Twitch channel,” Johnson said. “They start talking to me like, ‘Hey, man, did you hear about ‘TUF 24?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s flyweights. Yeah, whatever.’ They’re all like, ‘No, no, no. The winner gets an automatic title shot.’ I was like, ‘What are you guys talking about? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about right now. … What about Joseph (Benavidez)? What about this person? What about this guy? (Expletive), Joseph should join that. Joseph should join the tournament and he can get a title shot.’”

Should Johnson retain his title on Saturday, he will have cleared out the majority of the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA flyweight rankings.

Still, No. 2 ranked Joseph Benavidez (24-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC) – a fighter who took Johnson to a split decision in their first meeting before losing by knockout in 2:08 in the rematch, but remains perfect in the UFC outside of those bouts – is a name Johnson continues to bring up as a man who is getting the short end of the stick in the current arrangement.

And, should Cejudo pull off the upset to become the new champion, the division would be full of established contenders to the new king’s crown.

Johnson, however, said he doesn’t care who he fights. He was just confused by the way he received the news.

“The UFC didn’t tell me about it,” Johnson said. “I had no idea. … I never said I would never fight the winner of ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ I just basically said, ‘One, the UFC didn’t tell me anything about this. Two, a fan told me about it.’ So, it’s like if TMZ came in like, ‘Hey, Demetrious Johnson, what do you think about this?’ ‘What the (expletive) do you mean? That’s not true. That’s never happened.

“Maybe people took that as some sort of fear of me fighting some dude out of the house. (Expletive), I said throw Joseph in the house. I said throw the best fighter in the UFC flyweight division, the number one ranked fighter in the UFC flyweight division in the house. So he can earn his right to have a title shot. That means I have fear? Does it? Throw Dodson in the house. I don’t care. I just don’t care.”