Demetrious Johnson: 'Why does it always come down to blaming the athlete for not selling the product?'

Days away from his UFC 186 headliner against Kyoji Horiguchi, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson gave fans and media another portion of his newly-found outspokenness, after being asked about all the hits the pay-per-view card had to take.

Last week, he fired back at critics by telling them it's "their f-----g bad", if they don't watch his fights. Now he followed up on that topic by raising the question: why should he -- the fighter -- be blamed for poor ratings and PPV numbers.

"Of all the sports, this is the only sport scrutinized where it falls all on the athlete," Johnson told reporters Monday. "Why does it always come down to blaming the athlete for not selling the product?"

Johnson feels, that it is his job to train hard and deliver on fight night. That's what he does, and that's why he is widely considered to be among the top-three pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

"When I got into this sport, I thought all I had to do was beat people and finish fights and everything else would take care of itself," Johnson said.

Despite his exciting fighting style, a seven-fight winning streak and his status as one of the best fighters in the world, "DJ" still fails to be a real draw with the fans.

This Saturday, he will headline a UFC 186 card, that had to deal with multiple high-profile bouts being scrapped: the original main event between T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao due to a Dillashaw injury, a welterweight-contender bout between Rory MacDonald and Hector Lombard due to Lombard testing positive for PEDs.

(Transcription via MMA Fighting)