Demetrious Johnson – “Right now I feel like boxing is more exciting than mixed martial arts, right?”
Demetrious Johnson, arguably one of the best to ever compete in mixed martial arts, has suggested that the current state of professional boxing may be more intriguing than MMA.
But is the flyweight GOAT wrong in his assumption? Probably not considering the biggest MMA fight of the year just got postponed after Conor McGregor reported an injury to the UFC.
“Right now I feel like boxing is more exciting than mixed martial arts, right?” Johnson said on his YouTube channel. “I mean, there are points of time where mixed martial arts is having its peaks, but right now you just have Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney. Ryan Garcia just popped.
“Then you had Francis Ngannou, who got knocked out by Anthony Joshua. Then you just had the beautiful Tyson Fury and (Oleksandr) Usyk, just beat him, became the heavyweight champion. That fight was absolutely amazing. From Round 1 to Round 12, I was at the edge of my seat.”
Johnson, a longtime UFC flyweight champion who later captured titles under the ONE Championship banner, made his statement prior to the UFC 302 pay-per-view in Newark, New Jersey earlier this month.
“Right now, we’re sitting here waiting for in the mixed martial arts world,” Johnson said. “We have a couple things going on. ONE Championship, we got Kade Ruotolo making his debut in mixed martial arts. We got a couple other things. But right now, I think that the story we’re waiting for in mixed martial arts is Islam taking on Dustin Poirier.”
The argument of which combat sport is more exciting or prominent in today’s environment continues to be a debate that will likely never see resolution. It is apples to oranges as they are two completely different sports with different rules and often times, different audiences.
Can’t we all just get along and enjoy a little bit of punchy face?
