Dillon Danis has unfinished business with the number-one lightweight contender in the world.
Although the first challenger to Conor McGregor’s lightweight throne probably won’t be decided until Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson slug it out, one can’t help but feel that the promotion are banking on the Dagestani to emerge victorious.
Traditionally UFC matchmakers did’t plan further ahead than the next fight, but now that the promotion is under new ownership who are trying to break into the Russian market, Nurmagomedov beating ‘El Cucuy’ would just suit everyone a lot better.
‘The Eagle’ headlining the first UFC card in Russia would be pretty huge, but if he shared the headliner with ‘the Notorious,’ we’re talking potential record-breaker.
Sounds familiar https://t.co/VQDWBrR8Ib
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 2, 2017
Plus there’s the added bonus of McGregor and Nurmagomedov already having a rivalry. There’s the trash talk, the Twitter DMs and, of course, that heated exchange they had backstage at the UFC 205 weigh-ins. It’s just an easier sell than Ferguson, who hasn’t managed to capture the public’s attention as much with his comments to the media.
To cap it all off, another layer to the beef between SBG and Nurmagomedov’s team has been added courtesy of Dillon Danis. The jiu-jitsu whizz explained during an interview with Submission Radio that he had a bit of a dispute with the Russian when he was a teenager that he tried to resolve with a grappling match.
“It’s actually a funny story. Me and him had a beef when I was 16/17. He used to come to a place in Jersey where I used to train because his manager was the coach of my gym. He used to wear that stupid shirt that said, ‘If Sambo was easy it would be called jiu-jitsu.’ I said, ‘Ok, let’s do a grappling match then and see how easy jiu-jitsu is.’ Never came to fruition.”
Although he never got a chance to settle his differences with Nurmagomedov, Danis explained that this bad blood followed him all the way to the UFC 205.
The New Jersey native was there as part of McGregor’s team for his historic title win over Eddie Alvarez while Nurmagomedov defeated Michael Johnson on the preliminary card. At the official weigh-ins for the event, Danis noticed some of the Dagestani’s entourage mean-mugging him. He thinks there’s a possibility this was a direct result of his past beef with their guy.
“Nah, it was through the team. I never got to train with him. At the last weigh-in, all his Russian friends were staring me down like they wanted to kill me. I don’t know, that’s just how they are though.”
Danis, who’s currently in talks with several promotions over making his professional MMA debut added that he thought a match-up against Nurmagomedov would suit him, even going as far to say that he would be confident in finishing him. However, he acknowledged that he would never be handed a 24-0 fighter for his first ever fight.
