Mikey Musumeci recently participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the MMA reddit community and gave some fantastic insights into a variety of different topics, including a future match with MMA legend Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson. He’s been pretty busy lately since winning the ONE Championship flyweight submission grappling world championship, and Musumeci was most recently seen competing against Gantamur Bayanduuren and winning a clear-cut decision against the Sambo veteran with brutal leg attacks.
Although he didn’t get the finish, fans around the world were screaming at Bayanduuren to tap and he ended up suffering catastrophic injuries as a result of not doing so. That was the last time that Musumeci was seen defending his belt, although he does have another title-defence lined up soon. He will put his title on the line against the current IBJJF no gi world champion Osamah Almarwai at ONE Fight Night 10. In order to help promote that match, Mikey Musumeci participated in the AMA with the reddit MMA community and answered a wide range of questions.
In light of his most recent match in the ONE Championship cage, Musumeci was asked how he explained the fact that Sambo competitors have recently been losing their grappling matches against BJJ black belts for the promotion:
“I think the best “sambo” people aren’t actually just sambo people. The dagistan (sic) team where Khabib (Nurmagomedov) and Islam (Makhachev) are from they are actually extremely high level collegiate wrestlers. So with their extremely high wrestling level, plus learning any grappling submissions, it makes them extremely dominant. I think the ruleset in sports sambo is limiting (cannot choke someone from back more judo based rules it seems) and combat sambo is great for mma, but for the jiu jitsu grappling ruleset I think it has shown a lack of skills, which overtime these sambo people can for sure develop, but for now they are limited.”
Naturally several of the questions were directed at a potential transition to MMA that Mikey Musumeci may end up making in the future. This came up more than once, and each time Musumeci seemed pretty eager about the prospect of competing in MMA, although he did explain some concerns he had about the idea:
“I have aspirations for mma in the future. I did muay thai over 7 years as a kid, but i would have to relearn alot. I am 26 now so I have so many years to study and learn muay thai again. Definelty (sic) would love to do mma, but only for a limited time so i dont get too much CTE hahaha”
“Yes, MMA rules match when i don’t suck at standup in the future. Honestly in my weight category in jiu jitsu I have already faced everyone that I wanted to, so my dream matchup is facing a legend out of jiu jitsu the literal goat of mma mighty mouse in a grappling match, and then maybe in a few years I return the favor and we do mma as well.”
While this is huge news, it’s also worth noting that this would also take quite a while to come to fruition. In the meantime, Mikey Musumeci was asked about the potential grappling match with Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson that he’s called for in the past:
“If I win this next match in May I believe its all set to happen! Mighty Mouse already agreed also!!!!”
“Honestly i would want to be on their team as tag partners because its literally just us 3 natty people vs all these juice heads. The natty people gotta stick together lol.”
