Gordon Ryan recently appeared on the MMA Hour and when the topic of conversation turned to an old foe of his, Dillon Danis, he had some harsh words for the state of his Jiu-Jitsu. Originally Ryan was actually pretty complementary of the last time that he met Danis on the mats, all the way back at ADCC 2017:
“I actually had a super close match with him in 2017. He played a very tactical, kind of cagey game and he actually took me to a decision and I ended up winning a decision. I’ve been trying to have a rematch with him ever since but he won’t do it, of course.”
As Gordon Ryan went on to point out, Dillon Danis was once considered to be a top prospect in the Jiu-Jitsu world. He doesn’t think that’s anywhere near the case anymore though:
“He was pretty well respected coming up through brown belt and then what people don’t know about this is everyone thinks he’s like this badass, but now I think they’re kind of starting to realize. If you actually look at the statistics and I’ve been dying to actually say this on a big podcast… Dillon Danis has a record in jiu-jitsu since black belt of 18-16. Like he’s not nearly as good at jiu-jitsu as people think he is. Everyone just references the match with me like, yeah, that was about five years ago, I wasn’t good either. But Dillon since black belt is 18-16 so it’s not a great record.”
Since leaving the world of professional grappling, Danis had a short-lived MMA career with Bellator and has even signed up to fight YouTuber KSI in a boxing match as well. While Gordon Ryan was critical of the level of Jiu-Jitsu that Dillon Danis has, he did congratulate him on his promotional work.
“The thing about Dillon is he’s an absolute master at managing to stay relevant without actually doing anything combat-related. I don’t know how he does it, but he does it and, you know, props to him because he doesn’t… First of all, his family must have money because he doesn’t do anything to actually generate revenue. He doesn’t have sponsors if you look at his Instagram, he doesn’t teach, he doesn’t compete. I don’t know how he’s not homeless, first of all. He must have like an inheritance or something.”
Of course, a lot of how he stays relevant is not necessarily positive. Just recently, Danis was involved in a brawl in the parking lot of where the weigh-ins were held for a boxing match. Ryan also analysed what led to Danis falling off the rails when it comes to his BJJ and he attributes that to one period in his career:
“But he manages to stay relevant and he was pretty well respected as a brown belt. He won a lot of things that brown belt and then he was like a big prospect at black belt and then he had a falling out with Marcelo [Garcia] and then once he kind of got in with [Conor] McGregor, that’s when he started to fall apart. His popularity skyrocketed, but his career kind of fell apart from there.”
The interview with Gordon Ryan where he criticizes Dillon Danis and his Jiu-Jitsu was uploaded to the official YouTube Channel of MMA Fighting:
