UFC Flyweight champion, Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, will undergo surgery for a partially torn labrum in his shoulder on Thursday.  The injury has forced him to pull out of a match against John Moraga slated to headline The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale on April 13.  This fight would have marked Johnson’s tenth fight since September 2010.

The surgery is not extremely invasive, so if everything goes according to plan, Johnson expects to be ready to fight mid-June.

“The doctor said I’ll be in a sling for 3-4 days,” Johnson told the MMA Hour on Monday, “after that just rehabbing.  With rehab and a full training camp, [I’ll] be ready to fight 100% in 8-12 weeks.”

Originally hesitant to even get the shoulder checked with an MRI, Johnson heeded the advice of trainer, Matt Hume.

“You only get one body.  It just so happens, Matt told me, ‘Your fights are not as hard as your training camps.  Your training camps are the hardest things you can do for a fight.’  When I’m in training camp, I push my body to where I just get sore, and when I get into a fight, it shows, I never get tired.  That’s why Matt made me do the surgery.  He said, ‘You could probably do this fight against John Moraga and you could possibly win it, or you could possibly lose it.’  I don’t want to take that risk.  I want to have a full training camp going into a championship fight.  This is not a joke, we take this very seriously.  That’s why we decided to get the surgery.  If things go well, I’m going to push for June 15.”

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