Joe Rogan and Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson spoke about the 2018 MMA trade between the UFC and ONE Championship.
Recently, talks regarding the swap that sent Johnson to ONE Championship in exchange for Ben Askren have come up again. When Johnson appeared on Rogan’s show, rumors about the transfer became a hot topic once again.
“I heard you had something to do with it as well. Ben Askren has been wanting to fight in the UFC for a long time. ONE Championship and the UFC were talking back and forth between Hunter [Campbell] and Matt Hume, and Malki [Kawa]. They were like, hey, let’s do a trade.”
“We’ll give you [UFC] Ben Askren for Demetrious Johnson. At one point, I heard that Dana [White] was like, Nah, I don’t wanna make that happen…”
“I was hanging out somewhere, and somebody said, you know, Joe Rogan had a piece in it… I was told that you kinda convinced Dana.”
Johnson’s skill level is undeniable but there’s also a very blatant conflict of interest with his participation in ONE FC events. Johnson’s longtime coach Matt Hume became Vice President of operations for ONE Championship prior to Johnson joining the org.
While Johnson was adamant about what he heard, Rogan denied that he advocated for the trade explaining he had boasted about Askren years earlier ‘while Askren was in his prime’.
Rogan stated:
“That’s not really accurate. I definitely was trying to get them [UFC] to get Ben Askren, but I was trying to get them to get Ben Askren back when he was with Bellator. When he was in his prime.”