MMA legend Demetrious Johnson returned to Jiu-Jitsu at the IBJJF Pan Championship 2025, but he suffered a narrow loss on points this time around. It’s a completely new experience for the veteran, as he spent his entire combat sports career focused on becoming the best MMA fighter in the world. Since retiring from MMA, he has completely switched over to Jiu-Jitsu instead and has now dedicated himself to becoming the best he can be there instead. It’s unlikely that Johnson would reach the same level that he did in MMA given that he’s already in his late 30s, but that’s why he competes in masters divisions instead.
He originally enjoyed huge success competing as a brown belt at Master 2, winning a world title on his very first attempt. He continued winning matches at that level and made a very convincing case that he was ready for the next challenge, eventually being promoted to black belt a little under a year ago. The step up in competition at black belt is always huge but nowhere is it more pronounced than in masters divisions. Masters brown belts are grapplers with somewhere around 6-9 years of experience in the sport, whereas the black belts there might have been training for more than 30 years.
Johnson experienced that firsthand in his black belt debut last year, going 3-1 and suffering his first loss in his actual weight class. Now he was making his second appearance in the master 2 black belt featherweight division and with a few more months of training, he had a chance to do better this time around. Unfortunately for Johnson he was knocked out in the opening round by Leon Amancio, who went on to win another two matches before losing in the final and settling for a silver medal. Johnson will no doubt be back again soon though, as he plans on competing in Jiu-Jitsu despite his MMA retirement.
The full IBJJF Pan Championship 2025 event replay, including the narrow loss that Demetrious Johnson suffered in the opening round, is available to watch on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch. Johnson also uploaded the footage to his official YouTube channel:
