{"id":371899,"date":"2020-12-23T06:28:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T14:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=371899"},"modified":"2020-12-23T06:28:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T14:28:20","slug":"anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Johnson is &#8220;definitely down&#8221; for Bellator light heavyweight Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Johnson is &#8220;definitely down&#8221; to participate in a light heavyweight <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/one-championship\/one-championship-gets-grand-prix-fever\/\">Grand Prix<\/a> tournament in the Bellator MMA cage.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, who previously challenged for the UFC light heavyweight title, recently signed with Bellator, where he will put an anticipated end to his longstanding retirement from competition.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson&#8217;s move to Bellator comes at a time when the promotion&#8217;s light heavyweight division is looking better than ever. Over the last few weeks, the Scott Coker-helmed organization has signed high-profile light heavyweights like Corey Anderson and Yoel Romero, adding to a roster that already includes talents like Vadim Nemkov, Ryan Bader, Phil Davis, Lyoto Machida, and Gegard Mousasi.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, Bellator seems to have more than enough top talent to promote a Grand Prix tournament, and if it happens, Johnson wants to be a part of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMan, I\u2019m used to PRIDE,\u201d Johnson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UFe_-21XIkw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told MMA Junkie<\/a>. \u201cYou know what I mean? When they had the tournaments and stuff like that. You know what I mean? If we could do stuff like that, I\u2019m definitely down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whoever Johnson ends up fighting in his Bellator debut, he&#8217;s just excited to get back into the cage and do what he does best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of challenges out there, so I can\u2019t just call out one challenge, but all the guys are good. They\u2019re tough,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThey picked up Yoel, they have Bader, they have myself, they have Corey Anderson. They have a few other guys. \u2026 I look forward to competing against everybody. I\u2019m not calling out just one person. I look forward to competing against all of them. All of them are top fighters to me regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Johnson last fought in 2017, when he was submitted by Daniel Cormier in a light heavyweight title fight. He announced his retirement in the aftermath of that loss.<\/p>\n<p>Who do you want to see him fight in his Bellator debut?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Johnson is &#8220;definitely down&#8221; to participate in a light heavyweight Grand Prix tournament in the Bellator MMA cage. Johnson, who previously challenged for the UFC light heavyweight title, recently signed with Bellator, where he will put an anticipated end to his longstanding retirement from competition. Johnson&#8217;s move to Bellator comes at a time when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":332425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10108,44],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Anthony Johnson is &quot;definitely down&quot; for Bellator light heavyweight Grand Prix | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anthony Johnson says he is &quot;definitely down&quot; to participate in a light heavyweight Grand Prix tournament in the Bellator MMA cage.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anthony Johnson is &quot;definitely down&quot; for Bellator light heavyweight Grand Prix | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anthony Johnson says he is &quot;definitely down&quot; to participate in a light heavyweight Grand Prix tournament in the Bellator MMA cage.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-23T14:28:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Anthony-Johnson-2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/anthony-johnson-is-definitely-down-for-bellator-light-heavyweight-grand-prix\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/e1a3f1e5a045aeaf5b59aa1549a06a87\"},\"headline\":\"Anthony Johnson is &#8220;definitely down&#8221; 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