Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson had strong words for fans criticizing Khamzat Chimaev’s performance against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 319.

Some viewers dismissed Chimaev’s dominant, wrestling-heavy victory as “boring”, but Johnson pushed back – stressing that grappling is at the heart of MMA:

If you guys don’t want to watch grappling and wrestling and jiu-jitsu, don’t watch UFC.
Don’t go watch One Championship.

Go watch line fighting. Go watch glory. Go watch kickboxing. Go watch Muay Thai, right?

Chimaev’s approach leaned heavily on control, as he secured 12 takedowns out of 17 attempts and maintained long stretches in positions like side control and crucifix.

To Johnson, this wasn’t a lack of action but rather an example of flawless execution of wrestling fundamentals:

He’s just wrestling. That’s all he’s doing, is wrestling.

He shoots in, gets their back, goes two-on-one, steps in front of that lead knee, and just gets heavy.
You get heavy. That’s literally all he’s doing to control.

The former champion also criticized referee Marc Goddard for intervening:

I disagree with that stand up both times. There’s no reason why the ref should have stood him up.
This is a match.

It’s up to DDP to get to a better position, to be able to better himself, to be able to compete.

For Johnson, what fans witnessed was MMA in its purest form, even if it didn’t satisfy those looking for knockouts or highlight-reel finishes:

This is a sport.

It’s not the most exciting way to win a match, but those are techniques that DDP wasn’t able to defend or anything like that, right?

Like, the actual competing of mixed martial arts is a sport.

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