Dillon Danis wants to step into the octagon, but he can’t convince the UFC to sign him.
The always talkative Danis’s latest claim is that high-ranking UFC officials, including UFC CEO Dana White and UFC CFO
Hunter Campbell, are worried that he won’t behave if he’s handed a contract. This past August, Danis made a return to MMA competition at Misfits Boxing 22—his first MMA fight in over six years—and he claimed the influencer boxing organization’s inaugural light heavyweight title with a 15-second submission of Warren Spencer.
Now, Danis feels he’s more than ready to compete in the UFC if they’d only give him a chance.
“I offered to be in the [Ultimate Fighter] house, which is actually crazy, and Hunter said that I was going to punch someone in the house and just get out and use it for clout or something like that,” Danis told Demetrious Johnson on the MightyCast. “That was kind of like his thing. He was like, ‘Just tell him to get more fights.’ They’re scared that I’m just going to be too crazy. The whole Logan build-up was crazy. I hit him with a microphone and all that bullshit, and I think they think that I’m going to bring that to the UFC where it’s like a totally different game. That’s why this time I was a little bit more calm to show them I that I can be respectful and I can do that, but obviously when someone hits you in the nuts with a f*cking bottle, I’m going to throw a mic at their face.
“I don’t know, I think they’re just scared of me. Dana White even said, ‘He’s always getting in trouble,’ like every time I go somewhere I get into fights with people, but at the end of the day they’re UFC fighters, they have security, and I’m there by myself and they’re going to attack me, I’m going to fight back. I’m not going to just sit there and take it.”
If there’s any truth to what Danis is saying about the UFC’s concerns, they wouldn’t be unfounded. At UFC 229 in Las Vegas in October 2018, Danis was involved an infamous post-fight brawl with Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Shortly after Nurmagomedov successfully defended the lightweight title with a fourth-round submission of Danis’s friend Conor McGregor, Nurmagomedov exited the cage and attacked Danis, who was working McGregor’s corner.
The melee, which also involved current UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, resulted in major fines and suspensions for McGregor and Nurmagomedov, plus more minor penalties for Danis and others. Danis is certain the infamous moment has permanently tarnished his reputation with UFC officials.
“A hundred percent,” Danis said. “Because when I go to the UFCs now, they’ll be like, ‘You’re not allowed to go here, you’re not allowed to go here.’ That’s why I get into so many fights because they don’t want to give me security. They don’t want to do this, they don’t want to do that, they don’t want to put me through the back. They treat me differently now because they think I’m going to start some kind of brawl or something. I do start a lot of shit, but obviously, when the UFC says do something or do this I’m not going to disrespect them.”
Danis, now 3-0 competing under MMA rules, claims he made somewhere in the range of seven figures for his fight with Spencer, so his motivation to test himself against UFC competition is not financial. Now that he has gold of his own, he’s happy to put it up against Makhachev, assuming Makhachev is successful in taking the UFC welterweight title from Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 322 on Nov. 15 in New York.
“Everybody knows where to find me, everybody knows who I am,” Danis said. “This is the real 170-pound belt. Islam’s not the champ, JDM is, but Islam will be the champ. And I want a champion vs. champion fight, me vs. Islam so I can get my revenge, storyline finished, that’s what I want.”
