Demetrious Johnson Questions How Movsar Evloev Is Still in the UFC
Demetrious Johnson heard that Movsar Evloev is 20-0 with no finishes and asked how that record is still on a UFC roster. The former flyweight champion made the point on a stream with Israel Adesanya, and he used Michael Page’s exit as the comparison.
Evloev is unbeaten in 20 professional fights and 10-0 inside the UFC, with every Octagon win going to the judges. He is the No. 1 featherweight and challenges Alexander Volkanovski for the title at UFC 333 on Oct. 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Before the UFC he was finishing opponents. In the promotion, he has not.
Johnson went straight at the number. “You said he’s undefeated, 20-0, no finishes,” he said. “How the f*ck’s he still in the UFC?”
He tied it to a cut the UFC just made. Page left after his contract ended in September, and Dana White said the promotion was not bringing him back. Page went 5-1 in the UFC, and all five wins were decisions. “We just, they just cut MVP,” Johnson said.
He did not treat that as a one-off. “The UFC is so gung-ho cutting people who aren’t exciting, no knockouts, and it’s like they just got rid of MVP,” Johnson said. “He’s not knocking people out, but he is doing some flashy sh*t in there.”
The flashy line was about Page. The finish line was about Evloev. Johnson said Evloev knows how to win, then came back to the same problem. “How the f*ck’s he, and not even a submission?” he said. “And he’s a grappler.”
Adesanya picked up the same point. “He’s a grappler with no finishes or no knockouts,” Adesanya said. He separated that from the Page situation. “The stuff with MVP is other stuff that we’re not privy to as a public. That’s why they have their own issues.”
The record supports the finish claim, not the idea that Evloev has been hiding. His last fight was a five-round majority decision over Lerone Murphy on March 21 in London, with Murphy docked a point in the fourth for a groin strike. Before that he outgrappled former champion Aljamain Sterling. His win over Diego Lopes at UFC 288 earned Fight of the Night, his only UFC bonus.
Evloev has already answered the boring label, before this clip. He told MMA Junkie in September that a fight without a finish does not have to be dull, and that fans stay with him for the wrestling and the scrambles. He has also said he wants the Volkanovski fight to be his first UFC finish. That is his target, not a result he has produced yet.
Johnson’s comparison is the part that will travel. Page was a decision fighter with a highlight style, and the UFC let the contract run out. Evloev is a decision fighter with a title shot, ten wins deep, and no stoppage on the ledger. The promotion has treated winning the right fights as enough, even when the wins all reach the cards.
UFC 333 is the test of that argument. Volkanovski is 28-4 and still the featherweight champion, and Evloev is the unbeaten contender who has never ended a UFC fight early. If the Russian controls another five rounds, the title changes hands without the finish Johnson was looking for. If he stops Volkanovski, the 10-fight decision run ends on the biggest stage he has had.
