Everybody knows Dillon Danis pulls out of fights.
Yet, the former jiu-jitsu ace continues to book high-profile fights. Last month, Danis was supposed to fight Mike Perry in an MMA fight at the inaugural Duel Arena 1 event. Then, at the last second, he withdrew from the fight, revealing a gruesome cut on his arm and the surgical aftermath. As a result, Perry faced a significant pay cut, immediately injured his shoulder in the fight, and suffered an unfortunate loss to a short-notice replacement opponent.
That’s an awful sequence of events that began with Danis’ injury and withdrawal.
Given his history, why is anybody signing up to fight Danis? Nate Diaz, who fought Perry earlier this year and was hoping for a rematch, is baffled by Perry’s decision and believes that Danis purposefully cut himself to avoid the fight.
“Why are you fighting that guy? He’s f—king, not a fighter,” Diaz told MMA Junkie. “He’s a f—king p—sy b—ch. People keep falling for this. I’m like, ‘Anybody who wants to fight him, beat his ass in a bathroom somewhere.’ You don’t have to fight that guy. He’s f—king not an eligible opponent. It’s embarrassing that he’s even trying to fight people. He’s scared. He cut himself open just not to fight. That’s crazy to me.”
Unfortunately, there is only a small number of high-profile free agents in the MMA sphere, and Dillon Danis sort of qualifies. For a fighter like Perry, Danis has a unique risk-to-reward ratio: the risk is high that Danis withdraws, not that he wins! Meanwhile, his name is valuable enough to make an event bigger. In this case, “Platinum” got burned.
Maybe Danis’ old training partner joins the ranks of free agency soon? Until then, the options for fighters operating outside the Octagon and hoping to make serious money remain limited.
