Bellator’s Douglas Lima details ‘awesome’ meeting with Michael B. Jordan, training with Jonathan Majors for Creed 3
Douglas Lima got a little taste of what Hollywood feels like — and he wants more in the future.
The former Bellator welterweight champion, who on Friday moves to middleweight to fight Costello van Steenis at Bellator 296, recalls receiving a call from his coach Roan Carneiro in 2022. Hollywood star Michael B. Jordan was finishing filming Creed 3 and needed a gym to shoot some training scenes of co-star Jonathan Majors, and they thought Lima’s American Top Team gym in Atlanta would be the ideal spot.
Douglas said his brother Dhiego Lima, a retired UFC veteran, told the Creed crew their only “demand” was to somehow be included in the movie. Creed 3 premiered March 3 and pulled $58.7 million in box office revenues in its opening week, a record for a sports film.
They agreed, and Majors punched Douglas Lima in the face for hours.
“It was awesome! What a cool experience,” Lima said on this week’s episode of Trocação Franca podcast. “[Jordan] and Jonathan Majors, it was so cool doing that movie. And it’s not easy, man. Damn. We trained there for, like, two hours for a five-second scene, you know? It’s very exhausting, but I loved that experience. I hope I can do more of that in the future because it’s pretty cool.”
“We spent the whole week rehearsing, but the actual filming took two hours. It’s a small scene in the movie. They work really hard, man. We got an idea of how it’s done. People work really hard.”
Lima didn’t get the opportunity to trade hands with Jordan, who has trained boxing for years to play “Adonis Creed” since the first movie launched in 2015, but he did share the ring with Majors, who plays Creed’s childhood friend “Damian Anderson” in the movie. Would Majors do well in boxing if he one day decides to test his hands in a professional bout?
“Depending on the fight, he can do it,” Lima said. “Jonathan Majors said he has been training boxing for a year and he’s got potential. He’s pretty strong, he’s big, but would definitely have to focus on training a bit more to do some fights out there.”
“Michael B. Jordan, I didn’t get the chance to train with him because his scenes were already done, but he’s definitely better became he’s been doing boxing movies for a long time. He’s definitely technically better than [Majors].”