Adriano Moraes reflects on epic trilogy with Demetrious Johnson: “I will take it with me for the rest of my life”

Adriano Moraes has been one of the most dominant MMA world champions in ONE Championship history, with multiple world title wins and multiple defenses in his decade-long tenure with the world’s largest martial arts organization.

Among those piles of wins, the biggest triumph of 'Mikinho's professional MMA career was when he scored a second-round knockout of Demetrious Johnson in their first meeting in April 2021.

That career-defining win not only sent shockwaves across ONE Championship but throughout the MMA community, as it was Johnson’s lone knockout defeat.

However, the 36-year-old American exacted revenge on Moraes with two successive victories in August 2022 (via fourth-round knockout) to dethrone the Brazilian MMA superstar and May 2023 (via unanimous decision) to successfully defend the belt.

Despite the back-to-back losses from Johnson, Moraes is still thankful for the opportunity to fight one of the sport's greatest athletes and take all the learnings from their trilogy, as he shared in a recent interview with ONE Championship.

‘Mikinho’ said:

“Sharing the cage with DJ was a great experience that I will take with me for the rest of my life. I learned a lot from him.”

The American Top Team representative still waits for his next opponent inside the Circle. Still, he can potentially fight other top contenders, Reece McLaren, and Xie Wei, or compete in other sports like submission grappling bouts.

Rewatch the ending of the Johnson vs. Moraes trilogy at ONE Fight Night 10. ONE Championship’s Amazon cards are available free of charge for Prime Video subscribers in North America.