After his second title loss to Daniel Cormier last month, Anthony Johnson shockingly announced his retirement from MMA, alluding to other opportunities outside the cage. While a little left field, it sounds as though these opportunities are in the marijuana business.
“We’re opening up a facility, if you know what I mean,” Johnson told interviewers. “It’s for medical uses. We got some good things going on. It’s already big. We’re just waiting for that law to pass and whenever it passes, we’re golden. We’re playing our cards right, we’re playing by the book, so that way there’s no issue.”
But this wasn’t the only reason the hard hitting light heavyweight decided to hang up his gloves.
“My health, man,” Johnson said. “You hear about CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and all this other stuff. Head injuries. You’re harming your body playing football and stuff like that, but this stuff can happen just as fast in mixed martial arts as any other sport, because we’re constantly beating on each other. I love myself, you know what I’m saying? A lot of guys don’t think about that.”
“If those guys want to go in there and do that to themselves, go ahead, that’s your life, that’s your body, that’s your future,” he said. “But for me, I’m destined to do something greater. I just couldn’t do it anymore. You gotta go in there and do your thing. You’ve gotta make your money and get out. That’s why Conor McGregor is killing it. He’s straight killing it.”
It would seem the 33 year old they called ‘rumble’ is happy with his decision to leave the UFC, and with no plans to return the sport anytime soon, he will do so as one of the biggest hitters in MMA history.
“I left on my own terms,” Johnson said. “I left on good terms and I left as one of the best fighters ever in the weight class. I did my job.”
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