Of course I read it, and also the response from the UFC. It was usual fighter/promoter bickering.. happens all the time. Hardly some terrible treatment like you are insinuating. DJ was asked to fight against a guy that usually fought in another division. That's it. Fighters do it all the time.
This whole "upside" to fighting a guy thing is just so weird. He's still fighting, still getting paid. What was the "upside" to fighting Ray Borg?
He just wanted the easier fight, that's it.
So wait, you're saying that Johnson coming out and calling white and the UFC's mistreatment of him as being the usual? Really? Seriously? You can't really be suggesting that a guy who never once said a bad thing against the company actually coming out and saying he's been bullied and threatened to be par for the course, can you? lol
DJ has toed the company line for years and never complained about pay, not being pushed, exclusion from PPVs, and the like. So when he did, it showed you how frustrated and upset he was. He didn't want to fight Borg. They forced him to. Then, at the last second, they wanted him to fight a guy that's not in his weight class, that's not a title holder in another division. Since they were so adamant about Borg, he stuck it to them, and rightly so.
The upside to fighting Borg is pretty obvious. He was the next guy in line, per the organization. He was a one dimensional opponent that DJ would likely handle easily, and that he'd set the record against if he executed properly. Dillishaw was a guy with no track record at the weight, wasn't a champ from another division, wasn't a big PPV draw, and represented a ton of unknowns for DJ. There was no value to him putting his streak at risk since the payoff wasn't anything special. You say this is a business and other guys slot up and down all the time. Sure, that's true, but why is it only a business for the UFC? Why is it that when a fighter makes a business decision, he gets ridiculed? DJ had a much easier, more predictable fight against Borg than he would against Dillishaw. He made a business decision to force the UFC to stand by their original decision because that was best for his career, which is his business and how he makes money. If he took that Dillishaw fight and lost, it would literally invalidate his entire career at that weight. People would say the only reason he looked good was because the level of competition at his weight was sub par. So again, zero upside to taking on a former champ in a different division just to help the UFC salvage a marginal PPV.
