According to Bellator President Scott Coker, Dillon Danis is doing himself a disservice with his recent string of videoed altercations.
Saturday’s Bellator 288 event in Chicago was another successful night for Coker and Bellator. On the main card, Usman Nurmagomedov defeated Patricky Freire to win the lightweight championship in one of two title bouts.
It was just announced Danis will make his boxing debut against YouTuber KSI in 2023, after not competing in Bellator since 2019.
Danis was formerly regarded as one of Bellator’s most exciting prospects, mostly because of his strong Jiu-Jitsu abilities. His MMA journey was derailed once he destroyed his knee. After his last bout in the cage, Danis came out and admitted his knee practically had no ligaments.
What followed were two knee reconstructions and a lot of sloppy behavior online. Danis missed the chance to face Jake Paul in a boxing match because he was recovering – and what followed was a spiral.
Danis would go on to promote a series of crypto projects online – with most of them confirmed as rug pulls. Slowly he became more of an influencer than talent.
It all culminated with Danis’ arrest – during which he was drinking and allowed himself to be subdued by a bouncer.
This wasn’t the end of Danis’ issues. Just this past weekend Danis was in 3 altercations – 2 of which were spontaneous.
After confronting KSI in an attempt to generate buzz for their January boxing date, Danis was accosted by Bellator vet Anthony Taylor who proceeded to sock him to the face.
When considering Dillon Danis, Coker said,
“The thing that is a little frustrating is when you think about Dillon Danis, the guy has a great ground game, he’s one of the best Jiu-Jitsu guys on the planet.”
“So we signed him, we wanted to develop him, we wanted him to come into our system and start fighting. Fighting tougher guys…but I think he got sidetracked a little bit and other things got in the way.”
” To me, he had a lot of potential. We can’t make him do it, he’s gotta want to do it. Right now he’s doing something else.”
Particularly eye-opening is Coker’s use of the past tense to allude to Danis. This could indicate that Bellator might’ve already severed ties with Danis as a result of his inactivity and a switch to boxing.