diff --git a/sanic/request.py b/sanic/request.py
index 4f5d0bdc..734ad0a3 100644
--- a/sanic/request.py
+++ b/sanic/request.py
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
 import asyncio
 import email.utils
-import json
-import sys
 import warnings
 
 from collections import defaultdict, namedtuple
@@ -23,14 +21,7 @@ from sanic.log import error_logger, logger
 try:
     from ujson import loads as json_loads
 except ImportError:
-    if sys.version_info[:2] == (3, 5):
-
-        def json_loads(data):
-            # on Python 3.5 json.loads only supports str not bytes
-            return json.loads(data.decode())
-
-    else:
-        json_loads = json.loads
+    from json import loads as json_loads
 
 DEFAULT_HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE = "application/octet-stream"
 EXPECT_HEADER = "EXPECT"
diff --git a/sanic/response.py b/sanic/response.py
index 6f937c95..e339819f 100644
--- a/sanic/response.py
+++ b/sanic/response.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ from sanic.helpers import STATUS_CODES, has_message_body, remove_entity_headers
 
 try:
     from ujson import dumps as json_dumps
-except BaseException:
+except ImportError:
     from json import dumps
 
     # This is done in order to ensure that the JSON response is