{"id":519247,"date":"2026-03-07T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T00:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519247\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T00:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T00:25:09","slug":"donte-johnson-worked-in-dungeon-with-jeff-mayweather-before-ufc-326","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519247\/","title":{"rendered":"Donte Johnson worked in ‘dungeon’ with Jeff Mayweather before UFC 326"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2013 Donte Johnson wakes up every day, grateful to be alive.<\/p>\n

Not only is he living out his dream in the UFC, he’s staying active and succeeding.<\/p>\n

“I wake up every day, and I thank God,” Johnson told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a news conference Wednesday. “I say, ‘Wow.’ I think every day I cry. I cry tears of joy because I love my life and I can’t believe where God has brought me \u2013 every day.”<\/p>\n

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Among the “pinch me” moments for Johnson (7-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) was a trip Monday to work with legendary boxing trainer Jeff Mayweather, the uncle of boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. The experience was everything he hoped for and more.<\/p>\n

“That was a blessing,” Johnson said. “That was a dream come true. I actually had a dream I was in that gym. So when I actually walked in there and got them rounds in, afterward it was wild. It was wild. … It’s everything I thought. It was that dungeon work. I ain’t expect to go in and see dudes walking around. It has that dungeon. You walk in, and you smell that somebody just got done working.”<\/p>\n

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Johnson, 27, returns Saturday at UFC 326<\/a> vs. Cody Brundage (11-8-1 MMA, 5-7-1 UFC) in a middleweight prelim at T-Mobile Arena. The recipe has been working, so Johnson doesn’t plan on deviating too far from what he usually does, which is to just knock people silly. He has six knockouts and one submission in seven pro appearances, after all.<\/p>\n

“You know what the fans want: they want violence, and they want finishes,” Johnson said. “That’s just naturally how I fight. Naturally, my mentality is get in there and get it over with. That’s not going to change. … At the end of the day, we’re just fighting. We’re just fighting in front of people. I’ve been fighting my whole life. I can’t count how many fights I’ve been into. No, I just keep it for what it is. Yeah, there’s cameras and chauffeurs and stuff. But at the end of the day, we’re just fighting. I’m not going to overcomplicate it if I don’t need to.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 326 fighter discusses working in ‘dungeon’ with Jeff Mayweather<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Donte Johnson wakes up every day, grateful to be alive. Not only is he living…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,57817,641,30209,106220,24562,638,1302,82,640],"class_list":["post-519247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donte-johnson","tag-fighting","tag-floyd-mayweather","tag-jeff-mayweather","tag-johnson","tag-mma","tag-mma-junkie","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}