MMA legend Demetrious Johnson has just revealed that he is actually spending all of his training time focusing on Jiu-Jitsu these days. Johnson is the former UFC flyweight world champion and he holds the record for the most title-defenses in the promotion’s history. He has since become the ONE Championship flyweight champion as well, and he still currently holds the title. He is undeniably one of the greatest MMA fighters in the history of the sport, and he’s still not officially retired either. Regardless, Johnson is apparently already focusing on the next steps of his life and his training time has begun to reflect that.
Johnson recently appeared on an episode of the JAXXON podcast and when he was asked about what his next challenge was going to be, he explained that he was going to make his black belt debut at the IBJJF Master World Championship:
“Jiu-Jitsu next, worlds at the end of (Las) Vegas. Master Worlds 2024, so it’ll be my first black belt debut and hopefully we’ll go out there and come home with gold. Black belt‘s a different level, like I’ve been submitted more as a black belt than I was as a brown belt.”
Although he’s competed in Jiu-Jitsu in the past, this is going to be the highest level of competition he’s faced in the sport so far. Johnson was also asked about whether he was planning a return to MMA any time soon and he was pretty clear about where his thoughts were:
“No, don’t care for it…”
With his competition focus solely on Jiu-Jitsu for the foreseeable future, Demetrious Johnson has also apparently adjusted his training to fit that:
“No, I don’t train MMA… I train martial arts, but it’s Jiu-Jitsu. I haven’t hit pads in what… That was the second time I hit pads with (coach) Yogi in like a year and a half.”
He also went in to a bit more detail on his training schedule too:
“Jiu-Jitsu now is something for fun. I train 3 days a week, an hour or an hour and a half. So what, maybe 5 hours a week… But when it comes to MMA I was training maybe like 25 hours a week MMA. So 5 to 25 hours, it’s just a different beast. Everything was just more detailed, where Jiu-Jitsu for me is just an avenue for me to enjoy and search for competition…”
The full interview with Demetrious Johnson where he revealed that he was focusing exclusively on Jiu-Jitsu training was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the JAXXON podcast:
