Demetrious Johnson reveals why he retired from fighting: ‘I don’t find mixed martial arts fun anymore’
Demetrious Johnson is widely considered one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time but he recently decided to end his career after announcing his retirement at the ONE Championship event in Denver on Sept. 6.
It was an emotional moment for the former UFC flyweight champion after spending the past 15 years as a professional fighter but it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Johnson called it a career. After settling a trilogy with Adriano Moraes to win and defend his ONE flyweight title, Johnson started hinting that retirement was likely coming soon for him as he began turning his attention towards Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitions and building his profile outside of the ring with his podcasts and other endeavors.
While he fought back the tears when making his announcement that he was retiring, Johnson already had his mind made up well ahead of that event in Denver. It turns out, Johnson’s passion for the sport started to diminish and that was the only reason he needed to hang up his gloves for good.
“I’m not going to fight anymore,” Johnson told UFC contender Merab Dvalishvili on his podcast, which was recorded prior to his announcement. “The reason why — I don’t find mixed martial arts fun anymore. The reason why, I find more fulfillment in doing jiu-jitsu because I feel it’s harder. I find more fulfillment in helping and training with different people.”
Throughout his career in the UFC, WEC and ONE Championship, Johnson called AMC Pankration in Washington his home while working under the tutelage of head coach Matt Hume. While training there obviously paid off, Johnson also wanted the chance to branch out and work with different fighters but that opportunity was limited while he was still in the middle of his career.
Now that he’s retired, Johnson expects that he’ll be able to travel anywhere he wants and work with a wide variety of coaches and fighters because he’s no longer looking over his shoulder at a potential future opponent sharing the mat with him.
“I train with [Aljamain Sterling], I train with Mikey Musumeci, I like to train with people,” Johnson explained. “Because if I ever feel like I want to feel Merab’s gas tank, I want to see how good he is, I want to feel his strength. The only way that would ever happen is if me and you were to fight each other. If I was a professional athlete, it would just never happen.
“But if I’m like I don’t care about winning, I don’t care about ever having the opportunity to fight you, ‘hey Merab, can I come train with you?’ ‘Yeah, Demetrious come train, let’s train’ and when we train together you’re not going to have like ‘I need to beat you, you’re trying to learn from me.’”
Just because he isn’t fighting doesn’t mean that Johnson is going to stop being a martial artist.
He’s competed in numerous grappling events over the past year and it appears Johnson is anxious to keep that momentum going now that he’s retired.
Johnson also sounds excited to add more weapons to his arsenal working alongside some of the best athletes in the world because he’s no longer interested in fighting any of them.
“I’ve never trained outside of training camp when I would fight,” Johnson said. “Now, next time I’m in Vegas ‘you’re done fighting, let’s train together.’ I’ll get more fulfillment from training with random athletes from my era than continuing to fight in mixed martial arts. That’s how I feel.”
Johnson retired with a laundry list of accomplishments on his record including title reigns in both the UFC and ONE not to mention serving as the longest reigning champion in UFC history after defending his title 11 consecutive times.
