Anthony Johnson – Keeping Things in Perspective

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By Mike Russell

If you had to sum up UFC welterweight Anthony “Rumble” Johnson’s life thus far using only clichés, you might say he’s a 'cup is half full' type of guy who doesn’t like putting all of his eggs in one basket.

Chances are, he may not disagree with you.

Raised since the age of two by his grandparents on a modest farm in the small town of Dublin, GA since being left on their doorstep in 1986 by his addiction-gripped parents, AJ turned to athletics at a young age as an outlet for his emotions. Whether it was track, baseball, football or wrestling, Johnson excelled at everything he competed in, but it would be his performance on the mats that would provide him with the first tangible reward for his athleticism and would prompt his first big decision regarding his future.

An impressive record-setting 104-match win streak he compiled by the end of his senior year at East Laurens high school earned the gifted athlete a wrestling scholarship that he accepted without hesitation to attend Lassen College in Susanville, CA. While majoring in education, Johnson continued to evolve as a wrestler, improving his ranking from third in his freshman year to first in his sophomore campaign. Winning the national title that year under the tutelage of coach Joe Arminas, who six years prior had mentored Quinton Jackson on the same mats, Johnson made a conscious decision that after graduation he would exhaust all efforts to turn wrestling into a career before deploying the safety net he considered his diploma to be.

“I was never really intent on becoming a teacher, he admits. “I just wanted to have something under my belt in case I got hurt and couldn’t fight any more.

A chance conversation with a neighbor with whom he had discussed wrestling on occasion opened a door that Johnson was reluctant to go through at first. He now says he’s glad he did.

“My neighbor kept inviting me to come to his dad’s martial arts gym. I didn’t want to go, so I would make excuses every time he asked," he recalls. “A friend of mine just said ‘Try it out and if you like it, stick with it and if you don’t, don’t go back’. So I tried it out and next thing I know two years later I’m fighting in the UFC.”

Though his account of his express route to the UFC seems somewhat unbelievable, one glance at Johnson’s record backs his incredible story of his ten-month meteoric journey to the Octagon.

After decimating his opponent and knocking him out cold in 1:09 in his MMA debut on August 18, 2006, Johnson improved his record to 3-0 within a month of that first fight by defeating both challengers he faced in a four-man tournament on September 16.

He soon appeared as a blip on the UFC’s radar, but wasn’t offered a fight until the following June when he signed to face veteran Chad “The Grinder” Reiner with just one week’s notice at UFC Fight Night 10. With 15 professional fights under his belt, Reiner had five times the experience as Johnson as well as the advantage of having already competed in the Octagon, but it didn’t matter as the UFC newcomer needed just 15 seconds put him to sleep with his Ambien-like right hand.

Four wins and two losses later, including a controversial eye-poke TKO at the hands of Kevin Burns (a blemish he later emphatically avenged via head-kick knockout) and Johnson again finds himself on the familiar threshold of the doorway that leads to his future as he prepares for arguably the biggest fight of his young career. He is set to take on Josh Koscheck – a fighter he has been compared to on several occasions – at UFC 106 on November 21 in Las Vegas. The fight could potentially determine the next heir apparent to UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre’s crown.

Rather than wait for opportunity’s knocks to be answered by the judges, Johnson plans to tear the door off the hinges and seize his future in the UFC 170-pound division.

“This is a huge opportunity for me and I’m thankful for it and I want to make the best of it. I want to fight the best fighters in my division and Josh is one of the best. He has very good guys in his camp. All of his [teammates] are in the top ten in the world – top five even; I respect that and I respect him. I respect all of his training partners and coaches – the whole academy. I don’t take anything away from the guy. He’s a legit fighter; he has improved, but so have I. It’s going to be on when we step in the cage. It’s going to be a great fight. I’m really excited about it.”

Johnson says that although he respects Koscheck, the niceties he affords him will remain outside the cage when the action begins that night.

“He’s saying I’m scared of him and that I don’t want to fight him. You’ll never hear that come out of my mouth. I’ll fight anybody; that’s what I’m in the sport for and that’s why I’m in the UFC. He’s getting ready for a fight, so in his mind right now it’s like he’s getting ready to fight for the title. He’s going to feel like he’s better than everyone else. He’s a fighter and that’s what happens whenever you’re at a certain level,” Johnson says. “Boxers are like that. Every professional athlete that knows that they are one of the best feels like that, so I understand where that is coming from. I’ve got nothing against him. He’s a strong, powerful wrestler and I know that, so we’ll see if his wrestling and his stand up is going to be able to stop me. ”

Responding to further claims by his upcoming opponent that he was offered the fight as punishment for being six pounds overweight for his bout with Yoshiyuki Yoshida at UFC 104 – an infraction that cost Johnson a $60,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus – he says he considers the fight with Koscheck more of a reward for his past performances.

“I don’t see this as a punishment; I see it as an opportunity to erase it from people’s minds. I told my agent, if anybody gets hurt or has to pull out from a fight, I’d like to be the replacement and I got that wish. Sometimes you get what you ask for. I just got lucky, and they called and gave me another chance to fight again,” he says. “It’s going to be what it is. For me it’s not punishment because I asked for more competition and they gave me him. He’s no better than me, and I’m no better than him, but when we get into the Octagon, it’s on.”

Making no excuse for his screw-up on the scale, Johnson explains that what caused the “weighty” debacle last month had nothing to do with a lack of conditioning or cardio on his part and assures that it won’t happen a third time (he came in 7.5 pounds heavy in his second UFC fight against Rich Clementi).

“I’m usually about 210 [pounds] when I’m not fighting, but the last time I started camp at 220. I had a knee injury – that’s why my weight got up so high. I got lazy and just ate a whole bunch of crap. The weight is no problem as long as I’m healthy and I can do what I need to do. I was in great shape for the Yoshida fight, even though I was overweight,” he says. “For this fight I’m going to be in even better shape because I wasn’t out of shape when I got the phone call, so my cardio is stepped up even more. I didn’t stop training after the Yoshida fight; I was back in the gym that Tuesday, training, doing cardio, doing everything I needed to do and then I got the phone call about him on Wednesday. That right there is just saying I’m ready for whatever right now. If everybody says my cardio is so bad, we’ll see November 21.

Although he chalks it up as being another pre-fight psychological salvo by Koscheck, Johnson is quick to quash a public assertion by the fighter that he is afraid to get hit – an observation the American Kickboxing Academy product said he witnessed first hand when the pair sparred in the past.

Johnson says he hopes “Kos” makes the fatal error of underestimating how much he has evolved since then.

“That was like two years ago when I sparred with Josh. It was when I first got in the UFC and I didn’t know anything. If he’s still going by two years ago when we sparred, then he’s in for a load of trouble. It’s all good Josh, keep thinking that. We’ll see. My striking wasn’t nearly as good back then as it is now. Last year I learned how to kick, and look what my kicks have done for me. Everything has gotten better – my kicks, my wrestling, my hands. We’ll see if Josh thinks I’m just a pushover just because he’s “Josh Koscheck”. Being punched is nothing to me; I accept the damn punch, but when you punch me, trust me, you’re getting punched back. After the fight I’ll say, “Welcome to Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson’s world”.

He attributes most of his technical improvement to his work with Cung Le. Since joining the former Strikeforce middleweight champion’s Universal Strength Headquarters team last year, after brief stints training with Ken Shamrock and Chute Boxe USA, Johnson has been working diligently at patching any holes in his game that had become apparent.

According to Johnson, Le is on another level when it comes to thinking three steps ahead of an opponent, and he has passed along his unique theories and techniques he says have taken his game up another notch each time he has been in his corner.

“Cung doesn’t take it easy on me; he pushes me every time we train together. He always puts me in the situations I might find myself in during a fight and he asks me things like ‘What if your opponent comes in with guns blazing right from the start? How are you going to counteract that? He always mixes it up with punches and kicks – sometimes he hits you with both at the same time. Koscheck doesn’t do that. We’ll see how everything unfolds in this fight,” Johnson explains. “You only have to show me how to do something one or two times and I get the hang of it; even if I don’t get the hang of it right away, I’ll keep pushing myself until I get it right. Yesterday I was training with another one of my coaches and he was teaching me a new kick – a new move – and I was hitting it sometimes and then the next couple of times I wasn’t hitting it right. I was moving wrong and my footing was wrong. I didn’t want to go home until I figured it out. I had to fix it myself because I knew I could do it and I did.”

Referring to Johnson as being “a coach’s dream” due in part to his athleticism and ability to absorb and expel what he’s taught like a sponge, Le says he is confident in his protégé’s chances in his upcoming bout and feels he has the attitude and skill set to go far in the sport.

“Anthony sees this as a big opportunity and he’s going to take it. He doesn’t have a lot of fights in his career, but he’s definitely up for the challenge of facing Josh Koscheck. He has nothing to lose and a lot to gain. It’s going to be a fantastic fight,” Le says. “He’s a great kid who has a lot of respect for the sport and himself and he’s going to carry himself to the best of his ability – that’s just the way he is. I meet my guys half way; I give them the tools and they have to be able to pick them up and use them and Anthony does that very well. He has grown in leaps and bounds since I took over his training.”

Although he is cognizant of the consequences the bout with Koscheck could potentially have on his career, Johnson says becoming champion is high on his list of priorities, but isn’t at the top of his “to do” list.

“I’m not worried about a title shot or money right now, I’m just fighting. I know if I work hard they will come eventually. Becoming champion is on my bucket list, but it isn’t my number one,” he explains. “The number one thing I want to do with my life is to be somebody who is a good person, to stay humble and not to forget about everyone who stood by me from day one and to laugh in the faces of those who doubted me.”

In keeping with his lifelong habit of having a “Plan B”, Johnson is already strategizing his next move. Recognizing that he can’t fight forever and that a major injury could derail his fighting aspirations, he says that competing in another high octane sport and acquiring a second diploma are two goals he wants to reach in the not-too-distant future, regardless of his ranking in the UFC.

“I really want to race street bikes. I know it’s crazy dangerous just like fighting, but I’d love to do it. One wrong turn and you’re done, “Johnson says. “I also really want to go back to school to study sports medicine. If everything goes smoothly, I’ll probably go back to school and take it. If I could get hooked up with a professional sports team, that would be great. I’d get to travel and make money.”

Ironically, Johnson says that one career he would love to pursue would be that of a cutman like Jacob “Stitch” Duran, who is one of the most recognizable and respected men in the profession. The switch from being a fighter who inflicts cuts and contusions to a cutman who treats them would be an easy transition he says, adding that he isn’t after Stitch’s Enswell until he is ready to pass it on.

“Stitch is the man. He does his job well. He’s just doin’ his thing; I ain’t trying to take Stitch’s job,” Johnson assures. “When he retires, then I’ll think about doin’ his job. Until then, Stitch can fix me up any time and in return, I’ll keep him in work.”