Despite high profile forays into other disciplines, Conor McGregor is not the highest ranked pound-for-pound UFC fighter in the world. That accolade belongs to Demetrious Johnson—the sport's long-serving, record-holding Flyweight champion who hosts Twitch livestreams in his spare time.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is his favourite game at the moment, Johnson tells me, and it's one he reckons he could outperform company counterpart Conor McGregor at.
"I fucking better be able to," says Johnson of his chances of beating The Notorious on Erangel. "I'd like to think I can, yeah, absolutely."
Later this month, Johnson will take part in Uproar's The Golden Chicken tournament against a host of YouTube personalities and PUBG pros. The flyweight's Twitch channel blurb notes that whenever he hangs up his gloves he'd love to pursue a career in professional streaming. With this in mind, I ask Johnson if there is any overlap between his MMA career and his latest hobby.
"I've never done a livestream of me fighting in the UFC or training or anything like that but I have livestreamed before going over to the arena to fight," he says. "But at UFC 197, I believe it was, I went to fight Henry Cejudo, and I was streaming Dark Souls 3. I said I'd be right back as I had to go fight, I fought, won, then came back and jumped right back on the stream. I've done that a few times before."
Having successfully defended his Flyweight title on ten occasions, Johnson is widely considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the business. Yet the thought of Dark Souls speedrunning is to him more challenging than TKOs and armbar submissions.
"Dark Souls is difficult but I don't do any of that speed challenge bullshit," he says, "it's just too damn hard and takes too much time."
Look out for our full interview with Demetrious Johnson later this week.
