Michael Johnson left Hidalgo, Texas on Sept. 17 with an impressive first-round knockout victory along with a bit of controversy.
The Blackzillians' lightweight knocked out Dustin Poirier in just 95 seconds into the first round during their main event bout at UFC Fight Night 94. Following his devastating knockout, Johnson walked to his corner, then back to the downed Poirier. Standing over of him, arms raised in victory, Johnson gave Poirier a short post-fight message: ‘f*ck you.'
The two lightweights had a heated build up all the way to the night of their fight. It even included a scuffle that had to broken apart by UFC officials during the ceremonial weigh-ins on Friday. But it wasn't always like this according to Johnson, who said that him and Poirier used to be cool with each other.
"I didn't think it was personal until I heard all the bullsh*t that he was saying about me really downgrading my skills, [saying] I'm an average fighter, Im not great in this way," Johnson told Ariel Helwani during Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "I mean, I get trash talking, but at the same time I've been around Dustin before. We've hung out, we've been on the same area, I mean, we live 20 minutes away from each other, so I thought that it was pretty much cool between me and Dustin. So for him to talk shit about me that just shows he's really fake, and I don't like that."
Johnson clarified what he told Poirirer inside the cage following his big knockout, and said he doesn't regret it.
"I said, ‘f*ck you' when he was out," Johnson said. "I mean, I'm not going to lie. Everybody heard what I said, and I was really emotional after the fight, but I don't regret what I did. I apologized to him after that, but at the same time, I felt disrespected. And you know, who's to say that I was in the wrong for doing what I did, you know. It's okay for him to talk trash, talk shit before the fight, and push me on my face at weigh-ins trying to poke my damn eye out, but I stand over here after I knocked him out, and now all of the sudden that's the bad thing to do. That's a little hypocritical."
Johnson doesn't regret his post-fight celebration, yet he still apologized to Poirier which can seem ironic, but ‘The Menace' has his reasons.
"Because I can see how it kind of I went a little overboard with f*ck you and f*ck him," Johnson explained. "And I'm not that type of person, so I could see the look in his eyes, and I said, ‘Man, I just knocked you out. I just did what I did. I'm going to go out there, and apologize to just sort of brush things over.'
"It was more of a I'm a positive guy, so I'm just going to brush things over. It was in that aspect, you know. I don't want to go on and have a bad blood, bad relationship with this guy just cause we fought and things like that. So I had to apologize and make it a little bit right. It was more of a show of respect."
The 30-year-old Johnson said that Poirier accepted his apology and he believes that him and 'The Diamond' will be in decent terms.
"He accepted it and we exchanged a few words in the cage," Johnson said. "We still have mutual respect for each other, but I think that's the farthest it's going to go now."