(Goodnight, sweet prince.)

I can’t decide what to make of Anthony Johnson’s public campaign to brand John Howard as a fight-ducking coward.  He says he’s just pissed off that Howard backed out of a fight with him, but that seems like a strange explanation.  And yet that’s what he told Versus.com when the subject of Howard’s potential bitchassness came up:

"He said it was his manager’s decision, but I think, at the end of the day, it’s really his decision. I don’t think your manager should make all your decisions, especially when you’re supposed to fight and if you are going to say, ‘yeah’ or ‘no.’ … I’m speechless about the whole thing … I’m going to eventually get to fight him and knock his teeth out. It’ll happen.  I want to beat him up just because he backed out."

It’s hard to see what Johnson really has to gain by fighting Howard, whose UFC debut saw him win a fairly boring split decision over Chris Wilson.  Meanwhile, Johnson has been racking up impressive wins against more experienced opponents like Luigi Fioravanti and Kevin Burns.

Now Howard will take on Tamdan McCrory (who Johnson thinks will "whoop his ass") and “Rumble” gets a fight with Matt Brown, who’s also been on a bit of streak lately.  A win over Brown would have to be considered a more high profile victory than one over Howard at this point.  So is Johnson just trying to get at someone he sees as easy pickings, or does he really take it that personally when someone declines a fight with him? 

Maybe he should learn to take it as a compliment. It’s a good thing that people are scared to fight you, Anthony.  And it’s not as if there is a shortage of people to kick in the face in the UFC’s welterweight division.