John Dodson ready to rid UFC of 'plague' in flyweight division

LAS VEGAS — Demetrious Johnson has successfully defended the UFC flyweight championship six times. You may have heard of the only four men to have defended a belt more: Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones and Jose Aldo.

He's widely regarded as one of the three finest pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

Yet, John Dodson, his opponent on Saturday in the main event of UFC 191 at the MGM Grand, calls him "a plague on the flyweight division. Who wants to see the guy?"

When a reporter answered in the affirmative, Dodson didn't flinch.

"OK, you and who else? Yeah, I forgot, his mother, for sure," Dodson said. "You and his mother. Who else? OK, maybe his wife."

Dodson chuckles and then, as if to twist the dagger he just inserted, makes one last taunt.

"Maybe his wife," he says, firmly, laughing at his own joke. "Maybe. And that's it. We have such a great division, and he's bringing it down. He's giving us a bad name."

Dodson aims to make the flyweights "the most awesome and amazing division in this sport, just like me."

But for all his words, he has had a chance to rid the division of the man he calls the plague, and he failed.

It was Johnson who was awesome and amazing on that frigid January night in Chicago in 2013 when they first met. He survived a second-round knockdown to pull out a unanimous decision victory.

It was pretty obvious at the time that Dodson was the second-best fighter in the division, and the subsequent two-plus years have only proven that.

Dodson, though, didn't leave his job as a birthday party host at an Albuquerque, N.M., Chuck E. Cheese's, as well as a full academic scholarship, to be second-best at anything.

He's already got a victory over reigning UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw, and vows to become the first three-division title-holder in UFC history.

But Dodson isn't just insisting that he'll win a belt in a division, drop it to move up, win another and then do it again in a third division. He's insisting he'll be a fighting champion, holding the belts simultaneously and defending them as necessary.

It was the kind of talk from Hall of Famer B.J. Penn in the early days of Zuffa's ownership of the UFC that drove UFC president Dana White batty.

Penn would talk about winning the middleweight or heavyweight title and White would lose it. He really hasn't had to deal with it much since Penn's heyday, because no one has been audacious enough to even suggest it's possible.

Dodson, though, believes that if you're truly 'awesome and amazing,' it's doable. And if it's doable, why not him?

Even White's staunch stance against it doesn't bother him.

"Even if I win [on Saturday], I won't feel awesome," he said. "I will when I do what I've been telling everyone I can. Winning titles in three different divisions, that would be awesome. I want to walk a path of greatness. I'm not here for small things: 'Hey, I got to the UFC. Great. Hey, I just got my first win. Now I'll retire.' No, that's not me. That's not walking a path of greatness. I believe [winning titles at 125, 135 and 145 pounds] is something I'm capable of doing, so wouldn't it be wrong not to try?

"And as for Dana's opinion, well, I get it, but let me ask you a question: Didn't he say women would never fight in the UFC? Am I right or am I wrong? I do think he made that statement. And guess what? We have women in the UFC."

Dodson has never been content to be part of the crowd. He wrestled, played football and ran track in high school. He was good enough to have gotten scholarship offers in all three sports. He declined, them, though, and took a full academic scholarship to the University of New Mexico.

He was working as a birthday party host at Chuck E. Cheese's when a group of Albuquerque police officers walked in. One of their children was celebrating a birthday, but at the time, Dodson didn't know that. All he knew was that a police officer approached and asked, "Are you John Dodson?"

He gulped and took a deep breath.

"I said, 'Yes sir, I am. How can I help you,' but what I was really thinking was, 'What the hell did I do?' " Dodson said. "I was terrified, honestly."

But one of the officers was Chris Luttrell, who was coaching at the time at the famous Jackson/Winkeljohn's MMA school.

Luttrell knew of Dodson from the state high school wrestling championships and believed he'd make a good MMA fighter.

His athleticism astounded everyone in the gym. He did backflips over his much larger opponents while wrestling and was quicker than just about anyone they'd ever seen.

He knew next to nothing about jiu-jitsu, however, and soon found himself being submitted left and right.

"I told myself then and there that I wasn't going to quit this sport until I had gotten revenge and gotten all of the names on my hit list from those people who were submitting me," he said.

Nearly 13 years later, Dodson is fighting again for the world title. He's 30 and on Monday, his girlfriend gave birth to his first child, forcing him to leave Las Vegas to be there for her arrival.

He'll return on Wednesday and vows to put on a show at all of the public appearances he makes.

And then on Saturday, he insists he'll topple Johnson to win the flyweight belt and begin the drive to hold three titles at the same time.

Someone jokingly tells him he's crazy, but Dodson doesn't take the bait.

"My talent isn't going to be there forever," he says. "I see it as my obligation to use the gifts God has given me. I have the ability to be awesome and to accomplish some amazing things in this sport. School's going to be there forever. School is the foundation, and I can go back to finish that and re-learn what I need to re-learn.

"But I only have a short period of time to prove to the world how awesome and amazing I am. I have this gift and I want to use it."