Anthony Johnson stunned the MMA world when he announced his retirement following an unsuccessful title challenge against Daniel Cormier at UFC 210 on Saturday night, revealing that he had accepted another job unrelated to fighting.
So far ‘Rumble’ has remained tight-lipped for the time being about exactly what his new job will entail, but Johnson’s coach Henri Hooft may have let the cat out of the bag.
“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 told Ariel Helwani on ‘The MMA Hour’ yesterday. “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.
“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”
‘Rumble’ has already shot down rumors that he would be playing for the L.A. Rams, but Hooft went on to indicate that he may have a non-playing role within the club.
“I think so. Listen, I’m a European guy. I know everything about soccer, but not much about the NFL. Sorry about that.”
