Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson is one of the most decorated fighters in MMA history, but with Johnson clearly in the latter half of his fighting career, plenty of folks have wondered what his next step is. For a long time, Johnson already knew exactly what it was going to be: a full time Twitch streamer.
Johnson has been an avid streamer on Twitch for years. When he’s not training, it’s not uncommon to see him on online playing the next big thing. He recently checked out the hottest game on Steam, Lost Ark. For awhile, he was streaming so often that it was essentially a second job for him, and in a lot of ways, it was. While talking with the Washington Post, Johnson explained how he was fully prepared to make the jump to becoming a full-time Twitch streamer after his MMA career was finished. Eventually, though, he decided it wasn’t for him because of the absurd schedules that Twitch streamers typically have.
“Wake up every day and stream full time? … Oh god no. I couldn’t do it,” Johnson said during an interview on The Washington Post’s Friday live stream, Press Play.
…“My schedule basically consisted of this: I would go to the gym, train for a session, stream afterward, then get my second session in, come home, eat dinner, kiss my wife, and then go downstairs and stream for another two hours,” Johnson said. At the time, he was making around $3,000 per month from streaming, enough to cover his mortgage. “But then it came to a point where I was like, ‘Why am I doing this? I don’t get to go to bed with my wife. I’m absolutely exhausted. It’s just not worth it.’
Johnson’s love for gaming is very real. He’s never been shy about that, but the level of work and luck required to be successful on Twitch is just as exhausting as Johnson said. It takes over a person’s life and it can feel like they don’t have time to do anything else besides work on their stream, just to make a career out of it.
For now, Johnson is going to continue letting Twitch streaming be a hobby. Perhaps he will find a way to turn his love for gaming into a career after his days in MMA are done.