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ONE flyweight world champion and MMA all-time great Demetrious Johnson is getting ready for the first trilogy bout of his storied career at ONE Fight Night 10. His opponent, former ONE flyweight king Adriano Moraes, will be chomping at the bit to get a piece of 'Mighty Mouse' in front of a capacity crowd in Broomfield, Colorado.
The event will mark ONE's first show on U.S. soil and the organization is going big with a main event for the ages. Needless to say, everyone's expecting both DJ and Moraes to be in top form coming into the May 5th bout.
Demetrious Johnson, however, hasn't started his heavy training yet. While in attendance at ONE Fight Night 6 last weekend, Johnson was asked by the media if he's already started his fight camp.
'Mighty Mouse' replied with:
"Like I was saying earlier before, we haven't started training for that fight. Regardless, I've only done two training sessions on mixed martial arts since my last fight in August, and right now I'm just focusing on getting better as an athlete with my jiu-jitsu and staying healthy and in shape."
DJ is known to put a lot of emphasis on rest and recovery. The MMA living legend understands that, in addition to working hard, you also have to work smart. Perhaps even more so now at this point in his career. So far, his work ethic has yielded great results. Young fighters should take notes.
Watch DJ's full media scrum here:
Demetrious Johnson says key to longevity is knowing when to train and when not to train
In the same ONE Fight Night media scrum, Demetrious Johnson was asked what his secret was to being so good for such a long time. 'Mighty Mouse' has a very insightful answer.
Johnson said:
"The key to longevity is just knowing when to train and when not to train. The last time I've done any mixed martial arts training is Thanksgiving. So the last time I touched that base has been by about two months, and I think that's how we helped my longevity and just my mental capacity is in mixed martial arts."
Demetrious Johnson continued with:
"I've been doing this since I was 18 years old, and I think I sometimes take these long breaks from combat. Prior to my training in November, I didn't spar from August to November. So that's a huge time away from mixed martial arts, which I think is warranted when you've been doing it as long as I have."
If we consider this mentality towards training and recovery, then it makes total sense why Johnson hasn't started his full fight camp for Moraes yet. The ONE flyweight world champ is being patient and calculated with his training, and we're expecting the best version of DJ come May 5th.
