The good news is Demetrious Johnson is still interested in a flyweight championship super-fight with T.J Dillashaw. The bad news is that, according to ‘Mighty Mouse’, negotiations have stalled.

But Michael Bisping, the former UFC middleweight champion, believes Johnson should be doing everything in his power to get the fight booked, claiming that, despite being ranked the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, ‘DJ’ hasn’t really fought MMA’s crème de la crème.

“That is kind of frustrating because Demetrious Johnson, I’m telling you, he probably is the pound-for-pound best,” Bisping said about Johnson vs. Dillashaw on his recent podcast (h/t Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting). “When you look at the way he performs, you think, ‘Yeah, he’s pound-for-pound the best,’ but then you look at his opponents and it’s like, I can look fantastic if I’m fighting my daughter. I can do crazy s**t. I can pick her up and suplex her and put her in an armbar. I could pull off the sickest submissions if I was doing it against a 12-year-old girl.

“I’m not saying that Demetrious’ former opponents are like that of a 12-year-old girl - maybe 15. You see the point I’m making. Some of the competition has been very, very good but that’s always been the classic, cliche, knock on his career, that the competition hasn’t been as good.Then we hear about T.J. vs. DJ and it’s like, ‘Wow, here’s an opportunity where Demetrious Johnson can prove that he can beat somebody like T.J. Dillashaw.’”

Dillashaw, a two-time bantamweight champion, called for a flyweight superfight with Johnson after KO’ing ex-teammate Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217. The former Team Alpha Male fighter stormed into the top-ten pound for pound rankings after his win over ‘No Love’ and believes a win over Johnson would cement him as the greatest champ of all time.

Bisping, 39, credits Johnson for his record-breaking title run at 125 pounds but says he wouldn’t recognize half of DJ’s opponents if he walked past them on the street.

“Obviously I was only having a bit of fun,” Bisping said. “You’ve got to give DJ his credit. He’s incredible. He’s always looking for the finish. He’s exciting, he really is. But the competition, unless you were a hardcore MMA fan, you wouldn’t know who the hell they were if you walked past them. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t recognize some of those guys and I live and breathe mixed martial arts. If some of those guys walked past me in the street, I wouldn’t know. . .

“You need fantastic opponents. You need opponents that bring out the best in you. You need opponents that can give you a run for your money. And some of those people have given him a really good run for his money but some of them he’s completely wiped out.”

Bisping, The Ultimate Fighter 3 light heavyweight tournament winner, also believes a fight with TJ would massively boost Johnson’s popularity and star power, stating that a champ vs. champ super-fight would be the biggest pay-per-view event of his career.

“Another knock has been that he hasn’t been a proven draw,” Bisping said. “He hasn’t sold big pay-per-views. I don’t think that’s Demetrious’ fault. I think that’s just the trend that we see in combat sports. Super light weight classes like that have always had a hard time drawing at the box office. But him against T.J., that’s an interesting fight. That’s a fight that gets people to sit up, take notice, give him respect, and essentially, earn them both a lot of money.”

Although negotiations may have stalled, Johnson and Dillashaw were originally interested in co-headlining the upcoming 226 PPV featuring a heavyweight super-fight between Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier. That event is expected to take place on July 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.