Demetrious Johnson Rates Petr Yan As Potential Toughest Test At 135 Pounds
Demetrious Johnson views Petr Yan as his toughest test at 135 pounds.
Although Johnson is competing as a flyweight at ONE Championship, he is actually competing at 135 pounds as opposed to 125 pounds due to the promotion moving up the weight classes.
That means Johnson hasn’t had to deal with a major weight cut throughout his time at ONE. On the flipside, it means the combat sports world is missing out on witnessing him compete against the very best bantamweights in the world.
A move up to bantamweight was talked about a couple of years ago when TJ Dillashaw was the 135-pound champion. However, it never ended up coming to fruition.
But as far as his toughest test goes if he were to include everyone competing at 135 pounds? Johnson goes with former UFC bantamweight champion Yan.
“Probably Petr Yan.” Johnson told MMA Island (via Middle Easy). “His hands are f*cking good.”
“He’s very –- not taking anything away from Adriano Moraes, he’s still dangerous — but Petr Yan has a very unique style of fighting. He comes forward, he throws great combinations very fast. He seems like he has a good takedown defense and he has power. So that’s always dangerous.”
That’s certainly not a bad shout at all given that most would agree that Yan is still the best 135-pounder in the world despite the nature of his title defeat to Aljamain Sterling last month.
A Johnson vs. Yan would have also been a great fight to witness. For now, Johnson needs to focus on Moraes who he challenges for the ONE flyweight title on Wednesday at ONE on TNT 1.
