Polaris have just announced that Dillon Danis is aiming to return to the world of professional grappling at one of their upcoming events in 2023. This would mark the first time that he’s decided to enter a grappling competition since he attempted to make a run at glory at ADCC 2017. Immediately after that tournament, Danis set to work on making the transition to professional MMA and eventually made his debut with Bellator in 2018. While his Jiu-Jitsu pedigree led to a lot of expectations on his shoulders, he comfortably outgrappled his opponent and ended up winning by submission in the very first round.
It took Danis a little over a year to have his second professional MMA fight, although the result was equally impressive as he submitted another opponent in the first round. That’s where things started to fall apart though, as he ended up becoming known more for his controversial antics outside competition than his performances in it. In fact he stopped competing altogether and hasn’t had another MMA fight since, which is what led to Bellator CEO Scott Coker publicly questioning his desire to fight.
Danis claimed that he had plans for multiple fights at the beginning of 2023, and he was looking to start the year off with a change of direction. He made the jump from MMA to boxing and was booked to compete against popular YouTuber-turned-boxer KSI in a January event. Unfortunately for anyone that was looking forward to the fight, he ended up withdrawing on short notice and there hasn’t been any news of him competing since. Now it seems as though Dillon Danis has decided to return to the combat sport that he first found success with, and may very well be returning to Polaris to compete in a grappling match. At least that means that fans will get to see if what Gordon Ryan has been saying about him is true.
The news that Dillon Danis was aiming to return to professional grappling in 2023 was announced in a post to the official Instagram account of Polaris: