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MMA

08th Oct 2018

Dillon Danis wants to fight former UFC lightweight champion without commission involvement

Danis has broken his silence after UFC 229 brawl

Darragh Murphy

If you hadn’t heard of Dillon Danis before, you have now after UFC 229

Dillon Danis was the cornerman who reportedly provoked Khabib Nurmagomedov to jump out of the Octagon after his submission victory over Conor McGregor in the main event of UFC 229.

Danis has been helping McGregor work on his ground game ever since the Irishman’s defeat to Nate Diaz in March 2016 but all the grappling done in preparation for the daunting challenge posed by Nurmagomedov did him no good on Saturday night.

A neck crank drew the tap from ‘The Notorious’ in the fourth round of the lightweight title fight and according to commentator Joe Rogan, Nurmagomedov took umbrage with Danis’ cageside taunting.

In the build-up to the weekend’s grudge match, Danis confidently declared himself a better grappler than Nurmagomedov.

“I believe I have the same kind of game as Khabib but I have a lot more submissions in my arsenal. I have the relentlessness and the wrestling but I attack a lot more and I’m a little bit bigger. So I feel like I’m basically bringing a better version of Khabib to Conor every single day,” Danis said.

Danis, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under Marcelo Garcia, has become great friends with McGregor in recent years and it’s not hard to see why because both men are supremely confident although undeniably divisive.

Having made his MMA debut for Bellator in April, Danis is successfully getting his name out there due to his association with ‘The Notorious’.

After UFC 229, Danis broke his silence by offering to fight former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos after the Brazilian mocked the grappling whiz.