Demetrious Johnson has just suffered a knee injury during his most recent competitive appearance in the opening round of the IBJJF Master World Championship 2025. Although Johnson is undoubtedly one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, he’s had mixed results when competing in Jiu-Jitsu as a black belt. He first started doing IBJJF competitions as his MMA career was coming to an end and although he was a brown belt at the time, he had some great success. Most notably, he competed in this very same event as a brown belt two years ago and came away with a gold medal in a tough division.
He had already been promoted by the time that the 2024 edition came around and he made his black belt debut at the event. Things started out well for him, as he won his first three matches in a row, but he eventually got submitted in the quarter-final. Now it appears as though he wants to make a tradition of competing at the IBJJF Master World Championship, as he came for the third year in a row. Johnson got a bye through the first round when his opponent withdrew at the last minute, but his first actual match was where things took a bad turn.
Both Johnson and his opponent pulled guard, but Johnson came up first to score an early advantage. He had a tough time breaking out of closed guard at first but when he finally did, his opponent elevated him with a butterfly hook and transitioned through outside ashi in to backside 50/50. He locked up an ankle-lock when Johnson sat in to 50/50 and he clearly had a good grip, as he started cranking on it for the finish. Johnson frantically tried to escape but it was during his rotations that his knee appeared to get torqued in several different directions. Johnson ultimately tapped and explained afterward that he felt a few pops in his knee during the sequence, likely suffering an injury.
Demetrious Johnson shared the news that he had suffered a knee injury during his first match at the IBJJF Master World Championship 2025 in a recent video uploaded to his official YouTube channel:
