Cody Garbrandt Still Open to Demetrious Johnson Fight But Only If They Are Paid Right

Prior to his loss to T.J. Dillashaw last year, Cody Garbrandt already had designs on winning a second world title as he planned on moving down to flyweight to challenge incumbent champion Demetrious Johnson.

Unfortunately for Garbrandt, he fell to Dillashaw and it cost him the UFC bantamweight title and the potential matchup against Johnson disappeared.

Now as Garbrandt stands just days away from facing Dillashaw for a second time — on the same card where Johnson defend his flyweight title against Henry Cejudo — he was asked if there was still interest in making that fight happen down the road.

According to Garbrandt, moving down to flyweight to challenge the longest reigning champion in UFC history will always be something that he’ll always desire — so long as he’s getting paid properly from the promotion.

“I think DJ’s a great champion, a great person, a great human. That’s the thing — if the UFC is willing to pay us the money that we deserve — DJ if he wins this Saturday, he’s a 12-time consecutive title defense and me, the star power that I bring. If they compensate us, I’d be more than willing to fight “Mighty Mouse” at 125 pounds,” Garbrandt said on Monday in Los Angeles.

“If they don’t want to pay us, I’ll stay at 135 pounds and clean out my division and DJ can keep doing what he’s doing down there. No ill words towards “Mighty Mouse”. I think he’s a great fighter. They’ve got to compensate us for that. I think it would be a great fight.”

Of course after Garbrandt suffered the loss last year, Dillashaw was then rumored for a matchup against Johnson as well but the fight never came together.

Garbrandt says that Dillashaw was just biting off his ideas when he decided to take a stab at winning the flyweight title but he hopes to settle any debate about that when they meet in the UFC 227 main event this weekend.

“That was my plan originally. TJ took that from me,” Garbrandt said about facing Johnson. “I’m going to go down to fight DJ. He’s not original but we’ll take care of him Saturday.”