OF ALL THINGS, A TRADE
Posted: 010919

UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson has been traded to ONE Championship for former ONE welterweight champion Ben Askren. Trades just don’t happen in MMA. Fighters get cut and move on but are never traded. Johnson says the trade was something he thought about since his head coach Matt Hume, who works as an executive at the Singapore-based promotion and the current ONE bantamweight champion trains with him. Things were strained between UFC president Dana White and Johnson after he turned down a fight against T.J. Dillashaw so he more or less talked himself out a job. Johnson wasn’t a fan of how fights were promoted at UFC and had a reputation for being great in the Octagon and boring once out of it and that added a reason for the move. Johnson doesn’t have a fight lined up yet but Askren is likely going to fight Robbie Lawler at UFC 233. In other ONE Championship news former UFC and Strikeforce women’s champion Miesha Tate has taken on the job of vice president. She will move to Singapore with her first child.