Demetrious Johnson made waves in the BJJ community a few days back – when he won gold at the IBJJF Masters World Championships in Las Vegas!
And, well, “Mighty Mouse” says this is one of his greatest accomplishments so far.
He shared his love for Jiu-Jitsu and competing in the gi in a recent interview with TMZ Sports:
I just fell in love with it. The art of it.
And, using the gi as a tool to be able to strangle your opponent or be able to manipulate their body in certain ways has been fascinating to me.
Johnson said that winning the IBJJF World title is “up there” with the rest of his accomplishments (reminder: he won 12 UFC and 3 ONE Championship title fights):
It’s up there. Everything I’ve accomplished in my career, it’s up there.
I haven’t competed in a Jiu-Jitsu tournament since I was 18 years old, now I’m 37.
To go be able to compete with my son in the same tournament, it’s up there.
A big part of the BJJ community thinks that Mighty Mouse should have been promoted to black belt right now.
However, he understands that this shouldn’t be the case just yet:
The way my professor views black belts, or belting people is based on potential.
I still have so much more to learn.And he was like: “You could get your black belt but you’re not learning the steps you need to prepare yourself for that black belt.”
“You just won a tournament, congratulations. But, the tournament is done. You won it.
We get back in the gym, we move forward, and continue our steps to better ourselves as the best athlete we can be or best Jiu-Jitsu players we can be.”
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