Demetrious Johnson revealed why he decided to hang up his gloves.
Former UFC flyweight champion Johnson (25-4-1), who defended the title 11 times, announced his retirement from MMA this past week. He retired as the ONE Championship flyweight (135 pounds) title holder.
“Mighty Mouse” explains that he’s reached a point where he gets more fulfillment in training with random athletes from his era than continuing to fight in MMA.
“I’m not going to fight anymore, and the reason why is, I don’t find mixed martial arts fun anymore,” Johnson said on his “MightyCast” podcast. “Reason why is because 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. If I ever wanted 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, right? It would just never happen. But if I’m like, hey, I don’t care about winning. I don’t care about, you know, ever having an opportunity to fight you. ‘Hey Merab, can I come train with you?’ Yeah, you’re like, ‘Demetrious come train.’ And then when we train together, you’re not going to have like, ‘I need to beat you.’ You’re trying to learn from me. I don’t know. I’ve never trained outside of training camp when I would fight.”
Johnson has stayed active with grappling and jiu-jitsu competitions, but no longer feels like he’s growing when he fights. He competed in his final MMA bout in May 2023, when he successfully defended his ONE flyweight title in a unanimous decision win over Adriano Moraes to complete their trilogy.
“Once I get ready for a fight and I beat somebody, it’s like, OK, I beat him, I made this money – which is great,” Johnson said. “But I didn’t get to learn anything in that 25 minutes, if that makes sense.”
