‘Mighty’ Johnson: Why ONE Championship is the right fit

Arguably the greatest fighter in MMA history, Demetrious Johnson, left the UFC for a new home at Chatri Sityodtong’s ONE Championship. During a recent appearance on BJPenn.com Radio, he talked about being at his first live ONE event.

“The people who run ONE Championship are awesome, said Johnson, as transcribed by lead writer Tom Taylor for BJPENN.com. Getting to meet everyone, seeing that they’re all down to earth — even the athletes I’ve met are all very humble and down to earth. It was a great experience. It was just fantastic. … very respectful.

They have the old-school presentation with the fireworks, the big Jumbotron telling the story [of the fighters], showing the fighters come out, walking out, and then the entrance. … I loved the energy of everybody around.

Being around Chatri, his energy and his passion, not just for mixed martial arts, but just for martial arts in general, it was pretty cool. He’s focused on telling the stories of the athletes. He wants to build heroes in different countries, so they travel around to Myanmar, Jakarta, The Philippines, they’re gonna go to Japan, they’re always in Singapore, and they’re building heroes for the locals to look up to, and that’s what he’s focused on.

When I watched [middleweight champion] Aung La N Sang fight, and it was in his hometown and he defended his belt, the whole crowd was so moved by his performance, and I had never seen a crowd get behind their hometown hero like they had. Just to see how people were moved by it and how the kids over there are like, ‘I wanna be like Aung La N Sang.’ He came from poverty. He took care of his family, he’s taking care of his children now, and he’s such a great role model.

You know, Khabib Nurmagomedov he’s out there doing a great deal of fixing well-water for people in Nigeria. If somebody was out there and they did something bad or whatnot, that would have blown up way [more]… that would have created way more controversy than [Nurmagomedov] out there doing good, so that’s just the North American market.

[I had fans in] North America telling me, ‘Dude, if you talk so much more s*** you’d get paid a lot more.’ And I was like, ‘That’s not who I am.’ Even if I didn’t like somebody, I’m still not going to talk crap about them. So for me, always being true to my morals and values, it kind of pays off in the end. Now I’m with a company where they uphold my values a lot more. We share the same values.

I think I’ll get that the Asian fans appreciate my skillset a lot more. I mean they grew up, all their athletes over there are, like the average athlete is my size. And they have guys like ‘Kid’ Yamamoto, Imanari is over there, so there’s a lot of guys that are my size.

They got a lot of killers over there, and it’s going to look different. I’m going to be fighting at my hydrated weight which should be 135. So it’s going to be fun, I’m looking forward to it. A fresh new challenge, and fresh new blood.

I want to be a champion. I know it’s not going to be easy. It’s probably going to be the hardest story I have, to become a champion. The reason that I say that now, I’m a lot older, got to take care of my body. I have a lot more travel, I have a lot more fresh competition.

Everybody in the world is like, ‘Oh, he’s going to come over [to ONE] and clean the whole division out. He’s going to destroy everybody.’ I’m going to have some wars. It’s going to be in a lot of battles. Obviously, I would love for them to be — I would go on there and not get injured, but I’m not going to say it’s going to be an easy walk. I know these guys over here are tough. And I know they’re ready for me. I know they’re ready to beat me to make a name for themselves. So, I’m looking forward to the challenge and to see what happens.

When I came into the UFC, I had no ambition to be champion. I was working a full-time job, I was just doing it for fun, and seeing where the ball goes. But now that I’m in the groove, I’m a professional athlete, I’ve been a champion before. Now I’m more motivated. Let’s see if I can come in here, look around the block, and let’s see how my skillset does over here.

As far as my legacy, you don’t get to pick and choose what your legacy is. The public, the fans, they’re the ones that get to pick and choose your legacy. But for me, the biggest thing I want to make sure I’m going at is, after I’m done, I’m done. I can retire. I can spend the rest of my life being in my kid’s lives. Helping out. Helping people, if they need help when it comes to learning certain things, or helping them get through hard times. Just talk to them and tell them my story.

Because mixed martial arts is a tough, long road.