Dillon Danis might think he’s the new face of Bellator but, according to Michael Bisping, he’s just a cheap version of Conor McGregor.
Dillon Danis only made his professional mixed martial arts debut this past weekend at Bellator 198, but the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu whiz already believes he’s the promotion’s next ‘golden boy’.
Danis, 24, finished Kyle Walker with a rare submission toe hold in the first round and told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani that he brings an entirely unique and unorthodox style to the Bellator cage.
“I feel like they’ve finally got their golden boy,” Danis said on a recent edition of The MMA Hour, per MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi. “I 100 percent feel like that and I’m willing to do it. I feel like I can do something here. I feel like I have all the recipe to be different. I’ve been saying that. It’s all the things I’ve said. I really feel like no one has seen the way — my fighting style is so different. … I just feel like I’m different in every aspect and I feel like Bellator recognizes that. They feel like they finally have their golden boy.”
According to UFC veteran and former middleweight champion Michael Bisping, however, Danis is a ‘second-hand, overwashed, hand-me-down’ version of Conor McGregor.
“Not only is he Conor McGregor’s jiu-jitsu coach, he’s seeming to try to morph and copy McGregor’s antics,” Bisping said on his Believe You Me podcast, per Ben Kiely of Sports Joe. Certainly his clothing. Conor does wear some fucking really nice, cool shit and Dillon Danis is like the poor, second-hand, overwashed, hand-me-down version because his clothes are fucking terrible. But, he’s trying to be Conor so hard, it’s laughable. He even said, ‘After this weekend, I will own Bellator.’ That sounds vaguely like a line where Conor said, ‘I will own boxing.’”
Danis has trained with McGregor since ‘The Notorious’s’ welterweight rematch with Nate Diazat UFC 202, and the two have been great friends ever since. In fact, it was Danis who posted McGregor’s $50,000 bail after the Irishman was arrested last month on charges of assault and criminal mischief.
Danis has clearly taken inspiration from his SBG Ireland teammate and, while many fans may find his behavior a little over the top and a somewhat cringe inducing, Bisping believes Danis’ antics are working in his favor.
“He probably knows that this kind of behavior, as it did with me, encourages more people to want to see you get knocked out than win. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. The bullshit that he’s doing, the shit that he’s spewing is working.”
The New Yorker also called out former Bellator and ONE FC welterweight champ Ben Askren, but ‘Funky’ wasn’t impressed.
“I feel like I am the one to beat his undefeated record,” Danis said of a possible fight with Askren. “It would, I think, be a ground fight and it would be an easy submission for me. He does not like leg attacks. I know his game very well. I feel like he would be scared to go to the ground with me. So, yeah. I believe it would be an easy fight.”
With Danis notching his first professional win at Bellator 198, expect the submission artist to ramp up the trash talk in the lead-up to his next bout. Danis has already called Askren and Michael Chandler ‘nobodies’, even though they are much more accomplished in the MMA sphere and have world titles to their name.
“They’re trying to get their name out there,” he said. “They have no media. They’re kind of like nobodies, so when they call my name out, they get a bunch of articles and they do all these things and everybody is kind of like, ‘Get him’ or some shit. I think they’re just doing that to get their name out there. I don’t think they actually don’t like me or anything. I think deep down, they probably want to be me and stuff.”