Anthony Johnson hopes to complete journey from ‘hell’ to UFC champ

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sipping wine with a good friend for the duration of a flight home from Rio de Janeiro sounds like the perfect way to end a dream vacation.

For UFC star Anthony Johnson, it marked one of the low points of his fighting career.

Johnson had gone to Brazil hoping to make a big splash in his middleweight debut after years of struggling to make the welterweight limit. Not only did Johnson miss weight again for his 2012 showdown with Vitor Belfort, but he also was never competitive before losing late in the first round.

He was released from the UFC and found himself at a crossroads.

“I felt like everybody was looking at me as a loser,” Johnson said. “I missed weight and lost the fight. Flying that seven hours home from Brazil was the longest flight of my life, and it changed my life. (Coach Henri Hooft) and I sat on the plane drinking wine talking about what to do next.”

Johnson won six straight fights in the next two years at heavyweight and light heavyweight to earn another shot in the UFC, and he hasn’t wasted the opportunity. His only loss since that fateful flight home from Brazil was a light heavyweight title fight against Daniel Cormier in 2015.

He gets a shot at redemption with a rematch against Cormier in the main event of UFC 210 on Saturday night at KeyBank Arena.

“It would mean everything to win that belt because I’ve been to hell and back, and I don’t think anyone’s made that trip to hell and back as much as I have to get right back to where I am right now,” the 33-year-old Georgia native said Wednesday. “Winning the title would make everything worth it.”

The losses and weight-cutting struggles haven’t been the only low points. Johnson was suspended in 2014 after he was accused of domestic violence by the mother of his two children. While he was never charged, a lawsuit was dismissed and a UFC investigation cleared him of wrongdoing, Johnson still struggled with being permanently tagged with a label he feels is unjust.

“Society was looking at me like I’m some kind of monster, and I was just like, ‘Come on, dude, I’m not dumb like that,’” he said. “Those were the lowest points not just in my career but my life. But I’ve overcome them. That’s why I say anything people throw at me, I know I can face it.”

He did struggle to deal with the relentless pressure Cormier, an Olympic wrestler, applied in the first matchup.

Johnson, one of the sport’s most feared strikers, had his moments in the first meeting before succumbing to a rear-naked choke in the third round. That has been the same method by which Johnson has suffered four of his five losses. The other was a result of a fluke eye poke.

Cormier believes the pattern says something about Johnson’s heart when he can’t score an early knockout.

“He quit (in the first fight),” the champion said. “He tried to quit in the second round. I wouldn’t let him. In the third, I let him do it, and I choked him out. When every one of a guy’s losses has been the same, there’s something to it. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Johnson said he hopes Cormier believes that so he can prove otherwise. The challenger’s past five wins have come by knockout, including four in the first round. Johnson knows a win will wipe out any questions about him inside the cage.

As for his image, he’s not concerned with trying to change anyone’s mind.

“I don’t care about fixing what people see with that,” he said. “No matter what I say, people will say it’s wrong. I can just do me. I keep living my life with my family, my teammates and my friends. They know who I am. I might knock people out for a living, but you wouldn’t believe how many people meet me and say, ‘Wow, you’re just a nice guy. You’re kind of scary when you fight, but you’re a nice guy like a teddy bear or something.’”

He’ll look to be something a little more ferocious than that Saturday. Then, maybe a nice celebratory merlot.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @adamhilllvrj on Twitter.