Sign up for a FloCombat Pro account for exclusive access to live-streaming MMA events, in-depth athlete documentaries and more!

By Hunter Homistek

Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson is impossibly good at fighting. 

It's not fair to be that fast, that technical, that powerful, and that calm under fire, but he is. And he has been for some time. 

Mighty Mouse earned the first flyweight champion in UFC history when he seized the title from Joseph Benavidez via split-decision at UFC 152 in September 2012. At the time, Johnson was coming off the roughest stretch of his career. 

He lost to Dominick Cruz for the UFC bantamweight championship at UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson. To contextualize just how long ago that loss occurred, it went down live on Versus, which officially went extinct on Jan. 1, 2012, and is now NBCSN. 

The loss to Cruz, while definitive, only motivated Johnson. His record dropped to 14-2, but he found new life when the UFC introduced its 125-pound class in early 2012. This is where he always belonged. His frame was suited for the flyweight division, and he had ambitions of wrecking house on his way to claiming the inaugural title. 

Not so fast. Ian "Uncle Creepy" McCall nearly crushed "Mighty Mouse" at UFC on FX's Alves vs. Kampmann in March 2012. The two fought to a draw, but the Australian commission that oversaw the scoring botched the cards, and McCall was denied a tiebreaker round. Under the flyweight-tournament structure at that time, he deserved it. Given the fight's trajectory, he might've taken it, too. 

"Mighty Mouse" might not have become what he is today had that played out just a little differently—the way it was supposed to, by rule.

But here we are, and here "Mighty Mouse" stands, high above his peers. There's no question he should be mentioned in the same breath as Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, and Jose Aldo. His title reign—eight defenses in less than four years with five finishes—is among the best ever. Only St-Pierre (9) and Silva (10) have more consecutive title defenses in UFC history. St-Pierre finished just one of his nine. Silva finished eight out of 10 but is 0-3 with one no-contest in his last four. 

For Johnson, there's no challenger in sight and no reason to think he will experience a slide like Silva. Who is going to defeat "Mighty Mouse" inside the UFC Octagon at his weight? Here's the current top-five at 125 pounds beyond Johnson, in order: Joseph Benavidez, Henry Cejudo, Jussier Formiga, Ian McCall, and Kyoji Horiguchi. 

Johnson beat Benavidez twice (the second time via first-round knockout). He just starched Cejudo in a round at UFC 197. He hasn't fought Formiga, but with losses to both Benavidez and Cejudo, it's hard to bill the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace as a legitimate threat to Johnson's reign. 

He had the aforementioned draw against McCall, but soundly defeated him in a rematch. After dominating Horiguchi, Johnson submitted him with literally one second left on the clock at UFC 186. 

Johnson has unleashed pure devastation upon the flyweight division. With 10 straight wins—each seemingly better than the last—it's time to throw Johnson into a larger conversation: the pound-for-pound debate. 

There's only one challenger for Johnson in this discussion right now: former UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones. Like Johnson, Jones most recently competed at UFC 197, taking late-replacement Ovince Saint Preux five rounds and eventually securing a dominant—if lackluster—unanimous-decision victory. 

Prior to that, Jones had—also like Johnson—left a trail of utter destruction in his wake. The youngest champ in UFC history, Jones put the MMA world on notice with a TKO victory over Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 128 to claim the 205-pound strap. Then, he didn't let go. For eight title defenses (four finishes), he only tightened his grip. 

Jones is a virtuoso if MMA ever saw one—a young fighter whose in-cage brilliance transcends the sum of his parts. He barely trained jiu-jitsu in a formal setting, but he slept a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt in Lyoto Machida and tore the arm off another in Vitor Belfort. Boasting little natural knockout power, Jones still beat down "Shogun," Rasahd Evans, Glover Teixeira, and Chael Sonnen with his fists, elbows, shins, feet, and knees. A National Junior College Athletic Association wrestler, he out-wrestled an Olympian in Daniel Cormier. 

His level of competition is far better than Johnson's—no reasonable human will argue against that. But Jones also left the sport for 15 months to deal with a variety of legal and personal issues. He looked less-than-stellar against Ovince Saint Preux. And he's pushing the upper limits of the 205-pound weight class. 

Johnson, meanwhile, is squeaky clean. Like Jones, he's submitted men he shouldn't have (on paper) and knocked out men he shouldn't have (again, on paper). But the man shows up, passes his tests, takes care of business, and carries on. He's an avid gamer, a husband, a father, and a champion. As far as representatives are concerned, the UFC could do far worse. 

Then, there's the kicker in the pound-for-pound debate: Johnson weighs 125 pounds; Jones weighs 205. By definition, the pound-for-pound debate will favor lighter fighters. And Johnson is so consistently marvelous that it's hard to any longer deny him his spot atop the rankings. Jones and Johnson each fought at UFC 152, and since then, Johnson has fought eight times (five finishes) to Jones' five (one finish). 

If Jones recaptures his past brilliance and finishes Daniel Cormier in style to reclaim the UFC light heavyweight championship, we might have a valid discussion once more. 

Until then, Johnson has been the fighter showing up, doing work, and carrying on with his life. His stretch should not be taken for granted. If his performances have indicated anything, it's that not too many 125-pound men can fight quite like him.