Dillon Danis hit headlines just recently for all the wrong reasons as he was the subject of a viral video showing him being restrained by a bouncer in the New Jersey area just moments before he was placed under arrest. He was supposed to have appeared in court by now but has managed to have his hearing postponed in order to give his legal team enough time to support his case. In the meantime, the bouncer who restrained him has been lauded as a hero by many in the grappling community and has received a year’s free training with Tom DeBlass, and tickets to the 2022 ADCC World Championships by Gordon Ryan.
Danis recently gave his version of events for the very first time and the way that he tells it, he was nowhere near as arrogant as the initial reports indicated. In fact, Danis suggests that he was actually the one who initially acted in self-defense:
“The funny thing is, he’s saying I showed him Google images… I showed him my passport, and I showed him my vaccination card. I was like, ‘ Bro, listen. I just don’t have my wallet on me because we were taking pictures.’ I’m in a wedding. I was in a suit, no pockets or anything. He’s like ‘Oh, f—. You think you can do whatever you want. I know who you are.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, there’s no point for this. I’m having one drink with my friend and his family, then we’re leaving.’”
“So, I’m not allowed to move. I’m standing on the Boardwalk. I would’ve left… And then these guys started being confrontational. Then, they bring a bunch of the bartenders from inside, and it’s like 9 people, I swear to God, and they surround me… And I’m in a good mood. I’m out trying to get girls whatever, I’m chilling… And these guys are like, so egotistical. They were just trying to fight me like, ‘You talk all that ****.’ So then, they circle me and I think there’s like 9 of them. So I’m like ‘Yo, just no one touch me and we don’t have a problem. I’m not allowed to move, I’m on crutches.’ And I can’t go into too many details because it’s still under investigation. He’s under criminal investigation, there’s no court yet, we didn’t go to court yet.”
“So this one guy keeps tapping me in my head and he’s like ‘Yo, what happens if I do touch you.’ and I was like ‘Come on. Yo. Bro. Stop. I’m trying to have fun, please don’t do that.’ and he’s like ‘Okay, I’m gonna do it again.’ and he keeps tapping me on the forehead. And he’s like ‘what happens if I do touch you. What are you gonna do about it?’ And I was like alright, it’s on.”
There aren’t any unbiased third-party accounts of the events surfacing just yet, and it’s worth taking Danis’ recollection of events with a pinch of salt of course. Especially the next part, where he claims that he was able to stay upright against multiple attackers despite not having the use of one of his legs:
“So then a fight ensued. I can’t move, so I’m on crutches and whatever. Two of them are holding my arms and I’m trying to hit the guy, but they’re all trying to tackle me. Two guys are trying to take me down like a double leg. And I have a brace on, they can’t take me down. Two guys are holding my arms.”
“And then that dude just jumped on my back and they’re like ‘Yo, you’re under arrest. Stop fighting.’ I was like ‘okay, I’m good.’ I’m not gonna fight a cop, i’m not stupid. He’s like, ‘Yo, you’re under arrest. You’re under arrest.’ I was like ‘okay, cool, whatever. I already got what I had to do in. I’m good. We’re all good.’ He’s yelling in my ear, ‘You keep resisting. [Move] your hands and watch what happens.’”
“Anybody that knows jiu-jitsu or anything, you could see my arms in the air. I’m like, ‘okay, I’m good.’ He’s like ‘you’re under arrest.’ and the crazy part is, it’s like a 300-400 pound dude and I’m 190 and he jumps on my back like that from behind, so I thought it was a police officer. I’m like, ‘Yo, my arms in the air. I don’t know why he’s not arresting me. What the hell is going on?’”
The bouncer in question wasn’t actually placing Dillon Danis under arrest of course, although the police themselves would do that later on. According to Danis however, he was only in the station for around twenty minutes before being released and continuing his night:
“They let this go right away because the cops are fans and stuff like that. All the cops were on my side. I thought that was a cop… They put me in for like twenty minutes. Cop drove us to another party.”
“The craziest part about that guy is that he wasn’t involved in that whole thing. These guys were trying to take me down. They couldn’t get me down and this friggin’ 400-pound friggin’ fat slob jumps on my back and I’m on one leg… And now he’s walking around like he’s some hard man and s— like that. But he’s in trouble for impersonating an officer, there’s a whole thing, he’s going to court. It will get taken care of.”
Dillon Danis also had some choice words for a few of his fellow fighters who have criticized his actions that night or mocked his arrest, specifically pointing out the hypocrisy of some of them who have had their own run-ins with the law not long after speaking out against him:
“Jon Jones is celebrating this and look what happened to him. This m—– f—– is a woman beater. I’ve never put a hand on a woman in my whole life. He’s hitting his wife, his kid called the cops on him. I’m protecting my friends from stupid Jersey Shore bouncers trying to pick on them and Jon Jones is coming after me. Look at Chuck Liddell, same thing just happened to him… The only person that had my back in the MMA community was Mike Perry, and we don’t even know each other. He posted on his story saying ‘what do you want him to fight a cop?’”
Dillon Danis explained the events surrounding his recent arrest for the very first time on a recent episode of the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani:
