Ian McCall has advice for Anthony Johnson on starting medical marijuana facility: Hire a good lawyer

After intentionally keeping his post-career plans hush-hush, Anthony Johnson on Sunday revealed he’s getting into the medical marijuana business, dispatching rumors of a job with the Los Angeles Rams.

Speaking on “Heated Conversations,” the retired UFC light heavyweight told former pro wrestler Booker T, “My friend Paul, he’s in Canada, and we’re opening up a facility – you know what I mean – and it’s for medical usage.”

Johnson didn’t explicitly say he is opening up a medical marijuana shop, but he left no doubt of his intention. Still, he promised to keep the new business on the up-and-up, anticipating a swift push once there is a change in the legislative landscape. In his home state of Florida, a bill to legalize medical marijuana has stalled in the legislature despite capturing 71 percent of the vote. Lawmakers are calling for a special session to enact the bill.

“We’re just waiting on that law to pass, and whenever it passes, we’re golden,” Johnson said. “We’re playing our cards right. We are playing by the books, so that way there is no issue.”

Johnson isn’t the only UFC fighter to target the medical marijuana industry after hanging up the gloves. One still-active fighter, Ian McCall, has some experience, and he has some advice for the two-time title challenger.

“Get a lawyer,” McCall (13-5-1 MMA, 2-3-1 UFC) today told MMAjunkie. “Get a really, really good lawyer, and pay the yearly retainer fee. Pony up, because the rules change all the time. When the rules change like that, you can go to (expletive) prison.”

That’s one of the reasons McCall wound up getting out of the pot business before he ever got started.

Ian McCall

Amid a serious career stall, McCall, who’s had the severely unfortunate luck of seeing his past four UFC fights canceled, signed on to become a co-manager at a medical marijuana facility. As MMAjunkie previously reported, he and his partners won a lottery in February that granted them one of 20 permits to sell the drug and its derivatives in Santa Ana, Calif.

A fallout with his business partners led to his exit from the business, and he turned his attention back to fighting. But given his recent career troubles, a second shot at the medical marijuana industry sounded like a welcome shift.

“I would love to get into one,” he said today. “I need to.”

For Johnson (22-6 MMA, 13-6 UFC), a knockout artist who surprisingly called it quits after a second failed title bid against champ Daniel Cormier (19-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) at UFC 210 in April, the choice is about embarking on a career that’s lucrative and won’t destroy his body.

“You hear about CTE and all this other stuff, head injuries, and you’re harming your body playing football,” he told Booker T. “But this stuff can happen just as fast in MMA as it can any other sport, because we’re constantly beating on each other.

“I love myself. A lot of guys don’t think about that. They want to get into these battles, and just wars, and I’m not about that life. I’ll be honest – I was never a fighter. Fighting was natural to me in a way. because I was so athletic; I caught on to everything quick. I was never meant to fight. I was meant to do something else, something greater in life. It was just time for me to move on, and I wanted to be able to have kids and be able to talk to them and play around with them by the time I’m 45.

“I know a lot of these guys already have kids that are in the UFC and MMA, and they get knocked silly. My man Diego Sanchez has taken some hits, bro, and he’s dropping. I remember watching him on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and he was killing it. Now, these guys are younger, bigger, and faster, stronger … and I don’t want to go out like that. If those guys want to do that to themselves, go ahead. That’s your life, that’s your body, that’s your future. But for me, I’m destined to do something greater.”