Anthony Johnson’s coach breaks silence after UFC 210…
Fighting for all the marbles at UFC 210, light-heavyweight knockout artist Anthony Johnson came up short. It was ‘Rumble’s’ second bout with Daniel Cormier, both for the belt, and it ended the same way on Saturday.
Johnson’s rear naked choke loss led to a shocking post-fight retirement speech. Emotional and thankful to the fans, Johnson revealed he’d found a new line of work to pursue. While all this was happening, it appeared Johnson’s coach Henri Hooft was nowhere to be found.
Emotional Moment Followed By Outrage
Fans blasted Hooft for how his absence looked after Johnson’s loss. Speaking to MMAFighting.com, Hooft has a very different version of events,and blames social media for stoking the fire:
“He came to me and said ‘I f*cked up.’ I told him this happens and not to beat himself up, this is what you tell your fighters after they lose. I went to the back to grab another shirt, and then I heard what he was saying, looking for me and other people.”
“I was like ‘Oh sh*t,’ and I went to come out but he was already at the curtain. We talked about it and cried about it. I have been with Anthony for six years, it was hard. He was very disappointed, and so was I. It was strange to see that he did it there, I respect it, we had our moment together which is very important.”
“Its social media, people saying that he was quitting or throwing the fight, and bad stuff hanging over me. It’s all bullsh*t.”
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What’s Next?
“Anthony is 33 years old, so you never know what happens in the future, but if you want to step away from it, you really need to step away from it. Or you need to become a coach, like I did after my fight career. But it’s totally different than MMA. I think it has something to do with football. If you look at his Twitter and his social media, people will find out sooner or later what’s really going on.”
“I’m not going to go into details, because I don’t know the real details, but everybody sees his (social media) pages and it has to do with football,” Hooft said Monday on The MMA Hour. “I don’t know, I didn’t really discuss the details, but he seems to be busy with this for awhile and enjoying it. It has something to do, totally different than with MMA, and I think if you really want to stop fighting, you really need to step away from it, because if you keep hanging in there, you’ll probably get lured back in there.
