Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, a UFC light heavyweight contender who just fought for the title-and lost-to Daniel Cormier, doesn't get it. Johnson has been accused on three separate occasions of committing violence against women, yet recently took to social media to publicize harassment of a woman at his gym.
In the since-deleted rant, Johnson owned up to pulling out a yoga mat from under a woman who had the gall to stretch near the area Johnson and other people were lifting. He was unapologetic about it, threatening to do it again if he sees her stretching there. He also let loose with mysogonistic comments about the unnamed woman's body.
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This definitely didn't happen at a Planet Fitness, because the Lunk Alarm would've been at full blast.
All jokes aside, Johnson's history of hitting women is frightening. He pleaded no contest in 2010 to putting his girlfriend in a headlock and dragging her up a flight of stairs. Remember, he is a professional mixed martial artist. In 2012, he allegedly knocked two teeth out of the mouth of the mother of his two kids, and in 2014 he got hit with a restraining order.
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Pulling a yoga mat out from underneath someone at the gym is not at the level of physical assaults, but the actions, the threat to repeat the behavior, and comments about the woman's body like "stop wearing sports bras when your tummy look like a old country red clay dirt road," indicate that he hasn't changed much.
Johnson was named in a recent Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel piece about the rate of domestic violence being a major issue in mixed martial arts. The piece was centered on ex-UFC and Bellator star War Machine, who famously beat porn star Christy Mack nearly to death. It also featured Jason "Mayhem" Miller, and touched on Thiago Silva, who allegedly put a gun in a woman's mouth. He was never convicted because the woman fled the United States.
Johnson's post displays a level of ignorance about not only domestic violence, but the perception of him, that is staggering. It is hard to fathom something more ridiculous than convicted woman-beating boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. defending NFL star Ray Rice in the wake of his own domestic violence scandal, but Johnson may have taken the cake.
In fact, he ran away with the cake and ate it.
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