UFC on FX 3 headliner Ian McCall ready to finish Demetrious Johnson, move on to title fight

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

This Friday night on FX, the second half of the UFC's first ever Flyweight Championship bout will be determined, as Ian McCall and Demetrious Johnson will fight for a second time. Of course, the matter should have been settled in March, when the two first squared off in one half of the mini-tournament to kick off the flyweight division.

The UFC instituted a fourth, sudden-victory round in the case of a fight going to a draw, and that's how the fight ended. However, when the scorecards were announced in Australia at UFC on FX 2, Johnson was mistakenly announced the victor when they were miscalculated. Now, as the rematch fast approaches this week, McCall is looking forward to putting Johnson behind him.

"I just want this to be over with and done," McCall said in an interview with MMAWeekly.com. "This time I want to put a stamp on it, I want to finish the fight and really just get it over with so I can go on and get my title."

"We have a lot of motivation because I felt I won the fight, he felt he won the fight, and we had all the drama behind it. We put on a great fight the last time and it has it's ups and downs I guess."

McCall knows he didn't fight the first bout as well as he could have, and he mentioned his striking game was not at its best during the first bout. Still, he feels it's a situation where he made some mistakes that can be fixed, while Johnson gave him all he had in that first fight.

"I really feel like he gave me all he had," McCall said. "He did everything he could. I think definitely I obviously showed I'm the better grappler, better wrestler, and now I just need to prove that I'm the better striker."

"You should never say 'this guy can?t knock me out' but I pretty strongly believe he can't. Anything can happen in MMA, or just sports like this in general, but I think there's a pretty good chance after feeling his power he's never really ever going to be able to knock me out."

Penick's Analysis: Their first fight was a blast, and though the scoring controversy was certainly unfortunate for both fighters, the UFC, and their awaiting opponent Joseph Benavidez, it does mean we get to see them go again on Friday. While most of the UFC's recent headliners have been five round fights, this one will be the exception at three rounds due to it being the tournament fight and the first bout being a three-rounder as well. Still, with how things went down the first time around, both fighters have to be looking to avoid the judges this time around, and we'll see how it plays out on Friday night.

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