Kajan Johnson Talks About Not Fighting Enough To Earn A Living

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Kajan Johnson spoke about his long layoffs between UFC fights, which resulted in him spending all of his money for the appearances on living expenses. Here are highlights:

On if he spent the money on his recent music video: “I wish. That got spent on the year I had to take off. If you only fight once a year – yeah, OK, I made $50,000 that night, or $70,000 including my purse. But it’s not like I’m able to sustain my life for a three-year period with that. I put together that music video off of a little bit of money I had stacked up. Now I’m going into surgery. Really, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to eat without going out and getting a ‘Regular Joe’ job in about four months from now. But I don’t care. I’m still putting that money in the studio. I’m still finding a way.”

On focusing on both fighting and music: “I have a pretty dope story to tell. My life is oftentimes like a movie, and that needs to be told. If I was in the spotlight where the UFC was ready to put their hype machine behind me, I wouldn’t have to do all this stuff. But I’m not in that place. I’m not that privileged yet. So I have to do it myself from the ground up.”

On why the UFC won’t promote his music: “I tweeted it to (UFC President Dana White), just because I said his name and I thought he should know. But I’ve said some stuff to them in the past, and if there’s any swearing in it or any foul language whatsoever, they can’t put it out. And I think I said (a curse word) in it, so I didn’t bother putting it out to UFC. But I’m sure they’ve seen it. I put it everywhere, so I’m sure they’ve seen it.”