LONDON – Melvin Guillard appears to be skating on thin ice with the UFC after a lackluster decision loss to Michael Johnson at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 37 event.

UFC President Dana White gruffly declined to comment on the future Guillard, who now is 2-5 with one no contest in his past eight outings following a shutout on two of three judges’ scorecards at London’s O2 Arena.

“I don’t ever say that stuff at the press conferences,” White said.

Earlier in the press conference for Saturday’s event, the UFC executive didn’t have much nice to say about Guillard’s performance, noting it was typical of fights billed as grudge matches.

“There’s no doubt Melvin ran the entire fight and was incredibly passive, the complete opposite of how he used to fight,” White said. “There was a lot of smack talk leading up to that fight, and those are the fights that everybody gets excited about, and nine times out of 10 they end up like tonight. Those drive me crazy.

“I was excited for that fight. I thought (they were) both really explosive athletes who can mix it up really well, and it just didn’t happen tonight. But you take tonight and take it to any city in the world and one fight is a bad fight, I’ll take that every time.”

White, of course, was referring to the rest of UFC Fight Night 37’s card, which produced finishes in five of nine bouts (a 10th bout between Roland Delorme and Davey Grant was scrapped when officials ruled Grant injured). The event drew a reported live gate of $2 million and marked the promotion’s debut on free-to-air TV on Channel 5 in the U.K., though a reported delay in the broadcast feed prompted White to ask fans for patience.

Guillard (31-13-2 MMA, 12-9 UFC) originally was slated to rematch Ross Pearson (15-6 MMA, 7-3 UFC) after a bout this past October was ruled a no contest due to an inadvertent illegal knee. In the buildup to the fight, he took shots at injury replacement Johnson (15-8 MMA, 7-4 UFC), his former training partner at Florida’s Blackzilians team. But there were few heated exchanges in the bout as he played a game of counters against Johnson’s more active offense.

Johnson caught a punch that nearly floored him in the first frame, but survived and took control in later rounds. Booed by the crowd, he vented his frustration with the bout in his post-fight interview and expounded on his feelings at the presser.

“It was obvious he didn’t want a piece of me,” Johnson said. “I’m a little pissed off that our fight was considered bad. I came here to fight, and he was running and not engaging.

“He was talking a lot of s–t before the fight, and I expected him to do something. But instead, he didn’t. I did think he was a little scared of me in this fight.”

Although Johnson wasn’t happy with the fight’s pace, he took some satisfaction in sticking to his game plan for the fight, which he said was to “put a little pressure on [Guillard] and counter him when he came in with his hard shots.”

The decision marked Johnson’s third straight win in the octagon after he made headlines by calling out several opponents on Twitter.

“Even though the fight didn’t go as planned, I thought we were going to fight a little more,” Johnson said. “I’m still happy with the win, and I’m looking onto bigger and better things.”

Meanwhile for Guillard, things aren’t looking good at the moment. The 30-year-old fighter did not attend UFC Fight Night 37’s post-event presser.

For more on UFC Fight Night 37, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.