Demetrious Johnson doesn’t want UFC relationship to ‘end up like Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian’

The UFC flyweight champion is looking to lower the level of online drama in his relationship with UFC president Dana White.

Demetrious Johnson’s working relationship with the UFC brass (or more particularly Dana White) has become ‘tumultuous.’ Put more plainly, there’s a lot of drama going on.

Back before Cody Garbrandt picked up a back injury, the bantamweight champion was set to defend his title against former title holder T.J. Dillashaw at UFC 213. Then Garbrandt got pulled from the fight, and Dillashaw had a flash of inspiration: start campaigning for a flyweight title shot against Demetrious Johnson. It seems the UFC loved the idea, and immediately got started on booking the fight, Demetrious Johnson, however, wanted no part of it.

What followed was an ugly war of words, much of it waged over media, in public. Threats were made, gauntlets were thrown down. Eventually, the UFC scrapped the Dillashaw vs. ‘Mighty Mouse’ idea and moved on to promoting other bouts. But, what’s next for Johnson?

While the flyweight champ, and recent ESPY award winner for Best Fighter, is likely going to be facing Ray Borg sometime in the coming months, the first thing on his agenda is repairing his relationship with Dana White. In a recent interview on the MMA Hour, DJ spoke about his plans to meet with White in the next couple weeks (transcript via MMA Fighting).

“I don’t think it’s fair when you have two grown men bicker on the f*cking Internet,” Johnson said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “You know what I mean? We’ll end up like Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian. Grown men, they sit down and talk about it, and that’s what we’re going to do in two weeks.”
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“It was just a big misunderstanding and we’re going to meet with Dana White,” Johnson said. “Dana White’s a grown-ass man, I am too, he’s got kids, I got kids, we’re going to sit down and get on the same level and go from there and see what options we have.”

Johnson also revealed that he’s recently signed up with Malki Kawa as the first full-time manager of his career. He’s currently taking time off to heal a hand injury with stem cell treatment, but expects to fight later this year.