MMA legend Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson has just been promoted to black belt in BJJ by Bibiano Fernandes and Yan McCane after spending quite some time dedicating himself to achieving the goal. Johnson has been one of the most well-rounded professional MMA fighters in the world for quite some time and he’s regarded by many as one of the greatest to ever to do it. It makes sense too, considering the fact that he has more UFC title-defenses than any other fighter in history and he immediately added a ONE Championship flyweight world title to his collection when he moved there.
Although he clearly has fantastic grappling and the ability to submit some of the top MMA fighters in the world, he’s been open about wanting to earn a black belt in BJJ in recent years. He’s clearly put more effort into achieving that goal as well, as he has actually started to take some time away from his main sport in order to compete in BJJ. While still a brown belt, Johnson won gold at the IBJJF Master World Championship 2023 after putting on a flawless display of technical proficiency. That was a great achievement for Johnson on a personal level and he’s been open about the fact that it meant as much to him as some of his other incredible career achievements.
He didn’t stop there either, and he actually won a gold medal in his weight class at the IBJJF Pan Championship along with a silver medal in the absolute division. That’s truly impressive for such a small competitor and even though Johnson is one of the best MMA fighters in the world, overcoming huge weight disadvantages is still very difficult. There’s no news on when Johnson will be back in BJJ competition at his new rank, but he did say that he will be ‘looking to continuing on my journey as a martial artist while also competing as a black belt’ so it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be that long!
Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson announced the news that he had been promoted to BJJ black belt in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
