Michael Johnson | Doing It The Hard Way

Johnson has been game since his days as a member of Team GSP on Season 12 of The Ultimate Fighter, where he advanced to the finals before dropping a decision to teammate Jonathan Brookins. In the 15 years between that bout and Saturday’s clash with Hernandez, “The Menace” has faced one of the toughest strengths of schedules you could craft in the lightweight division.

He was the last man to beat Tony Ferguson before “El Cucuy” went on his iconic run towards the top of the weight class. He knocked out Dustin Poirier in 95 seconds in Hidalgo, Texas, prior to “The Diamond” putting things together. He famously battled Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 205 in New York City, welcomed Justin Gaethje to the Octagon for the first time, and after a brief foray to the featherweight ranks, he resumed facing dangerous and talented lightweights as he’s started working his way forward in the division once more.

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“There’s a lot of pride in that, and it’s the one thing I got into this game for was to fight the best of the best, even if I wasn’t ready to fight Khabib at that time or maybe even Nate (Diaz) when I fought Nate; he had a lot of experience going into that fight,” Johnson said of his resume. “Some of these guys had years and years of experience on me back then. Yeah, I could fight, I was tough, but I was lacking the experience and that was the big difference.

“Nonetheless, I still threw myself in there with the best of the best because that’s where I like to judge myself… When it’s all said and done and I do make my way back to the top and I do accomplish what I want to accomplish, nobody can say, ‘Oh, he had it the easy way.’ I was winning and losing for 10 years straight, and it took me 10 years, 16 years to get here.

“Nothing has come easy and that’s one thing I really cherish and really hold onto deep.”

Years spent in the thick of the chase in the lightweight division and sharing the Octagon with the best the division have to offer make it difficult to cobble together wins. That’s true of any weight class, but especially important to remember when considering a shark tank like the 155-pound ranks, which is why anytime someone does go on a little run, it has to be recognized and appreciated.

Over the course of his now 16-year UFC career, the most consecutive victories Johnson has put together is four, a run started with a win over Joe Lauzon in August 2013 and wrapped with a unanimous decision victory over Edson Barboza in early 2015. That carried him into the biggest fights of his career, and the fact that he has a chance to replicate that feat next Saturday this late into his tenure brings Johnson a great sense of satisfaction and pride.

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“That’s what makes it feel the best, honestly,” he said. “Continuing to stay busy, continuing to stay focused on what I need to do and get going, and stay active, stay winning. (It feels good), and it’s a motivation too. I gotta stay in this game right now because it’s been up and down. I’m finally on a 3-fight winning streak, now I can get a little bit of space, but not so much.

“I still feel backed in a corner a little bit. I still want to accomplish so much more and that’s what’s really pushing this streak.”

Sports are filled with conventional wisdoms and accepted ideas about athleticism, development, and when an athlete is considered to be in their prime, but there are no hard-and-fast rules ,and there are frequently examples of individuals defying those conventions.

Generally speaking, the sweet spot in any sport seems to be when skills and abilities overlap with experience and guile, providing an athlete the opportunity to out-savvy their less experienced adversaries and out-athlete their more senior competitors. For Johnson, his athleticism has held up well and the more he steps in against younger competitors  — which is all but a handful of fighters in the division at this point — the more he’s recognizing that the years he’s spent plying his trade inside the Octagon give him a distinct advantage over those he’s facing.

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And even at 39, he’s still more than capable of fighting for 15 hard minutes.

“I guess that’s how it is — maybe I’m a late bloomer and I’m finally getting my full game together,” began Johnson, a snicker chasing his words. “It’s something I’ve been working on for so long, so much trial-and-error, but now it’s starting to fully click and come together. My striking is going great with my wrestling, jiu jitsu is coming along.

“I’m just starting to notice — a lot of these young guys, to me, they’re tough, but I don’t necessarily think they have a lot of fight skill when it comes down to it. They’re athletic, a lot of them are fast and quick, but when it comes down to the fight game, they’re missing that aspect of it.

“I have something they’ll never have: it’s impossible for them to have 15, 16 years in the UFC when they come fight me. I think it’s an old man’s game. People gotta remember — it’s only 15 minutes. With the way things are going nowadays with how healthy people are getting, it’s only 15 minutes; we’ve been fighting for 20 years. Fifteen minutes? Sign me up.”

This weekend, Johnson has signed up to face Hernandez, who touches down in Las Vegas in the midst of his own renaissance in the lightweight ranks.

Hernandez burst on the scene with a short-notice knockout win over Beneil Dariush at UFC 222, followed it up with another victory four months later and was paired with Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in the first UFC event aired on ESPN in January 2019. While they earned Fight of the Night honors, he landed on the wrong side of the results that evening and battled to find consistency over the next several years, even making a series of appearances at featherweight, as Johnson did.

But after returning to lightweight with a win over Austin Hubbard to close out 2024, the now 33-year-old Hernandez went 3-0 inside the Octagon last year, opening with a unanimous decision victory over former TUF winner Kurt Holobaugh before posting back-to-back stoppage wins over Chase Hooper and Diego Ferreira to reach 2026 with the most momentum he’s carried since those initial two wins.

“I’ve been watching Alex for a while — he’s got a good style, he moves really well, and he’s very confident in his game, as he should be; he’s had a few good knockouts, so he’s gonna come into this a little more confident,” Johnson said. “Me exploiting (matchups) is using my speed and my movement, so if he thinks that one of his attributes, then we’ll see how he feels when I’m moving in front of him.”

For Johnson, part of what has made this current streak so satisfying is that he’s forcing his way back into the conversation in the lightweight division, most recently at the expense of a promising Dana White’s Contender Series grad in Daniel Zellhuber who just didn’t have the accrued experience required in order to figure out what he needed to do to win their competitive battle in the French Quarter back in July.

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Now, he’s paired off with Hernandez, and the veteran is bent on derailing any plans the promotion had for his opponent and forcing them to sit down and map out what comes next for him instead.

“It’s gonna feel great! Four the hard way, baby!” Johnson said when asked about extending his winning streak. “We’re gonna start 2026 off the right way.

“A big thing I fight on is making everybody say, ‘Damn! Wow! Him? Still? He’s messing everything up!’” he added, snickering. “I’m sure they got plans for Hernandez too, but my plan is to make them make plans for me.”