UFC legend Demetrious Johnson has given his thoughts on Alexandre Pantoja‘s unfortunate injury at UFC 323.
In the co-main event of UFC 323, Alexandre Pantoja suffered a nasty arm injury that rendered him unable to continue. It happened in the opening exchanges of the fight and, as a result of what happened, Joshua Van was declared the new UFC flyweight champion.
We all expect to see Alexandre Pantoja recover and get back to his very best at 125 pounds. Of course, there’s no guarantee that he will be able to reclaim the throne from Joshua Van, but we can hope that he gets close enough to 100% that we can see the kind of fight that we were all anticipating – aka a complete banger.
In a recent video on his channel, Demetrious Johnson reacted to what went down with Alexandre Pantoja.
Demetrious Johnson’s view on Alexandre Pantoja’s injury
“That’s part of the game, guys,” Johnson said. “To keep going in, and doing it over and over, time and time again, over and over and over, it’s hard. It’s a sport where anything can f*cking happen.”
“I truly felt that Alex Pantoja was going to be able to break my 11 consecutive title defenses,” Johnson said. “Even though he was only at five — he still had six or seven more to go — but I didn’t see anybody on the rise that was going to give him a challenge. Granted, Alex Pantoja is 35 years old, and now that he has lost the belt, that clock starts all over, baby! [Smiling]”
“All I’ve got to say is, when you think about trying to be consistent in MMA, whether I was ahead of my time, or I was just that f*cking good, or everybody just sucked, as you guys said, showing up 11 consecutive times, on weight, passing every single drug test, and being dominant, and continuing to get better, throwing the Mighty Whizbar, and the flying knee, and all that stuff, it just shows you how hard it is to do,” Johnson said.
Quotes via MMA Fighting
Will they be able to run it back later this year? We’ll have to wait and see.
