- Former UFC star reveals customs officials inspected his flyweight grand prix title belt on way back from Tokyo
- ‘I guess they weren’t MMA fans,’ says ‘Mighty Mouse’
Demetrious Johnson's big shiny flyweight grand prix belt certainly caught the eye after his crowning victory at One Championship: Century in Tokyo last month. It also piqued the interest of US customs officials.
"Mighty Mouse" revealed to MMAJunkie.com that he was stopped by customs on his way back from the Japanese capital to Seattle last month after beating Danny Kingad.
"Yeah, I got stopped," Johnson said. "You can't bring something like that through and not expect them to be curious.
"They were like, 'What is that?' And I'm like, 'a belt.' And then they were like, 'Where did you get that?' And I'm like, 'in Asia.' And then I guess they weren't MMA fans, so I had to explain the whole deal with it."
To be fair, the belt is fairly sizeable " Johnson even pretended to topple over when it was placed on his shoulder in the cage.
"Not too many people pull through customs with huge title belts. So it took a while, but once I explained it they were cool," Johnson added.
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Good thing he got the belt safely through customs " the former UFC flyweight champion said it's his "favourite" from his whole career.
"This one means the most to me. Years ago I was a huge fan of (former Japanese MMA promotion Pride), and you'd see the belts guys like Mirko Cro Cop got when they won their grand prix tournaments. That was a special deal.
"So to go over to Japan with their history for tournaments and add my name to the list of people who have won tournaments and get the belt, yeah, that makes this one real special for me."
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