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Demetrious Johnson was stopped for the first time in his career in an unsuccessful bid for ONE Championship gold. The former UFC Flyweight champion came up short against ONE flyweight champion Adriano Moraes, who had entered the bout as a massive +540 underdog.
In the aftermath of his loss, Demetrious Johnson was seen congratulating his opponent backstage. Ariel Helwani posted a video of the friendly exchange between the two and included the following caption -
"Who’s cooler than DJ?"
Despite the odds, Moraes successfully defended his ONE flyweight title against the UFC legend in Kallang, Singapore in the main event of ONE on TNT. Demetrious Johnson found himself in trouble in the opening round as he was evidently outmatched by Moraes on the ground. While Johnson tried to keep the fight standing thereafter, Moraes made excellent use of his length to stay out of reach.
Adriano Moraes dropped Johnson with a short uppercut in the second round and followed it up with a vicious knee on the ground. A final flurry of punches from the Brazilian was enough to make the referee intervene.
Demetrious Johnson still supports knees to grounded opponents
Adriano Moraes defended his ONE flyweight title with a strike similar to the one that cost Petr Yan his UFC bantamweight title. Moraes shut the lights out on Demetrious Johnson with a knee on the ground which is considered legal in ONE championship.
Demetrious Johnson has recently been very vocal about legalizing knees to grounded opponents and hasn't changed his stance, even after the loss. Johnson said in the post-fight interview-
"Yeah absolutely (I still support the rule). Like I said, it ended the fight. I wasn’t stalling one bit. I was trying to get up and fight and I got blasted with a knee. My very first fight in ONE Championship I did it to Yuya Wakamatsu and ended up getting the finish. The rule is meant to be there to keep the fight progressing and end the fight. If Adriano wasn’t able to land that knee, yes I would have still been in that fight so he would have had to do something totally different. I’m totally content with what happened. I’m not like, ‘That rule should be taken out!’ That’s what the rule is, Adriano used it to his advantage and I was on the other end of the stick."
