Demetrious Johnson went on his YouTube channel this week and called the UFC brass hypocrites. The most damaging part for the promotion is that he didn’t need to exaggerate anything. Michael Page’s record does the arguing for him.
Page went 5-1 under the UFC banner and was riding a four-fight winning streak when the promotion decided not to offer him a contract renewal. He wasn’t unemployed for long. Page told Ariel Helwani he’s signed a three-fight deal with Misfits Boxing at seven figures per fight, which he says is double what the UFC was paying him. He also said Misfits will let him get creative with his entrances. No opponent or date has been announced for his first fight there.
Johnson saw all that and lost his patience. In comments picked up by MMAJunkie, he didn’t bother with diplomacy.
“They’re hypocrites,” Johnson said. “They say one thing and do the totally opposite.”
I’m with him. I just think his best point is a little different from the one he spent the most time on.
The Sport Argument
Johnson’s main case is about fairness to winners. In his view, if you keep beating people, you’ve earned your spot. “If they keep on winning, then they get to stay,” he said, describing how he thinks a real sport should work. He then laid out the UFC version as he sees it: you can stack wins and still get shown the door if you aren’t a draw, and the company might even start thinking about scrapping your whole division.
That last part is a flyweight legend talking, and you can hear the scar tissue. Nobody alive has more standing to complain about a promotion treating a weight class like a line item.
But the UFC has never been the NFL. There’s no league office, no standings, no relegation table. It’s a fight company that sells tickets and pay-per-views, and it has always cut, kept and pushed people based on what they bring to the box office. I don’t love it. I’d still rather see a promotion admit it than pretend otherwise.
The Honesty Argument
This is where Johnson lands the clean shot. His real gripe is the marketing. “I just want the UFC to try to be straightforward and honest about the product they’re trying to sell,” he said. “Don’t tell me that you’re going to have the best athletes on the roster when you’re going to let the best athletes go.”
That’s the hypocrisy, and the MVP situation exposes it perfectly. A guy who goes 5-1 with four straight wins is, by any definition the UFC would use on a poster, someone who belongs on the roster. Letting him walk while still selling the best-fighters-on-the-planet pitch is like a restaurant bragging about its chef right after it fires him for asking for a raise.
Johnson even wrote the press release for them. “I rather have the UFC say, We couldn’t afford him,” he said.
And look at the numbers. If Page is telling the truth about Misfits doubling his money, then the UFC made a business decision that he wasn’t worth that price to them. That’s a defensible call! Teams let good players walk over money all the time. What’s hard to defend is pretending a winning fighter’s exit has nothing to do with dollars, or nudging the conversation toward whether he was exciting enough. Say the number out loud and nobody gets to call you a liar.
There’s also something a little funny about a company passing on a fighter who cared so much about his walkouts that entrance freedom was one of the perks he mentioned to Helwani. The guy wanted to put on a show, and he had to go to Misfits to get permission.
The Wrinkle DJ Has to Own
Johnson isn’t walking into this argument with spotless hands. A day before his Page comments made the rounds, Kayla Harrison went after him for what she called his “super unnecessary mockery” of Natalia Silva vs. Wang Cong, the flyweight main event at UFC 332. So the same guy arguing that winners shouldn’t get punished for being dull just finished clowning a main event between two flyweights.
I don’t think that kills his point, though. A Hall of Famer roasting a fight on YouTube is a fan with a microphone. A promotion cutting a 5-1 fighter is an employer making a decision about someone’s paycheck. One of those costs a person their job. Still, if Johnson wants to be the guy who defends unglamorous winners, he might want to go easier on the next ones who headline a card.
MVP gets three fights at seven figures each, a bigger check than the UFC was willing to write, and full creative control over how he walks to the ring. When Misfits finally names his first opponent, the UFC will have a perfect chance to say what Johnson asked for: we couldn’t afford him. My money says they won’t.
