Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson has called on Conor McGregor to save the flyweight division instead of calling on Chatri Sityodtong, CEO of ONE Championship, to intervene.
McGregor called on Sityodtong to sign the departed UFC flyweights after ONE successfully secured Johnson in a trade deal for welterweight Ben Askren.
You must now take all the 125lbers that have been let go, Chatri.
You talk all of this Martial Art and respect talk, yet your greed has directly cost more than half a fighting division it’s chance to earn income for their family.
Have respect @YODCHATRI.
Sign the division.— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) November 8, 2018
UFC President Dana White recently said that the future of the UFC flyweight division is ‘murky’ without Johnson and that it may eventually be disbanded.
Johnson, who holds the record for most consecutive title wins in UFC history with 11 successful defences, said that if McGregor really wanted to protect the flyweight fighters he could use some of his influence within the UFC to make a difference.
“I don’t get where this logic comes behind that,” Johnson told reporters via BJPenn.com. “What makes him think Chatri owes somebody something?”
“If he’s worried flyweights losing their jobs, I’m pretty sure he has a huge stake in the UFC company now. I’m sure he can go to Dana, and be like Dana, ‘Keep these guys, these guys are fucking amazing. Let’s try to do this right.
“Let’s try to promote them.’ Facilitate a meeting of those who can [change things], with Proper Whiskey. ‘Let’s sit down and have a good talk.’ I’m sure he could come up with something if he really wanted to do it.”
“As I said, that’s Conor’s opinion of what he thinks should happen. This is a guy who is just business, you know, the Barclay’s Center [thing], throwing the dolly in the bus, hurting multiple people. I truly think he doesn’t care. But that’s just my personal opinion.”
White said on the UFC’s Unflitered podcast recently that fans don’t care for the division and that he tried to fight for its survival but that it ultimately never caught on with the promotion’s supporters.
“T.J. Dillashaw didn’t do sh-t to the flyweight division,” he said.
“The flyweight division just never took off, it never caught on. Even with a dominant champion like Demetrious, it just never caught on.
“People didn’t care. I battled for a long time, I tried to keep it alive and obviously, it’s still going on now. We still have fights going on in that division, but we’ll see what the future holds for it.”
