Dillon Danis Reveals What Conor McGregor Told Him After Bellator 222 Win, Details ‘Excruciating’ Injury
This past weekend (Fri. June 14, 2019) Dillon Danis picked up the second win of his mixed martial arts (MMA) career.
Danis submitted Max Humphrey in the first round with an armbar at Bellator 222. However, after the fight, Danis revealed he was dealing with a torn LCL prior to competing. Speaking on today’s (Mon. June 17, 2019) “Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show,” Danis’ coach, John Kavanagh, explained when the injury took place:
“Yeah, it happened a week out,” Kavanagh admitted. “Weirdly, a common story, the last round of his last spar. In fact, it was the last few seconds of the round. And, he went for – actually he went for the same technique he won his fight with, but he got caught in kind of a funny angle and he heard a tear. He went and got assessed and it turned out he had a tear of his LCL.”
Kavanagh was very impressed with Danis’ performance. He noted that Danis’ ground-and-pound ability was very much on display in the fight, and he has to remind himself that this is only Danis’ second professional fight inside the MMA cage:
“The takedown came pretty quick,” Kavanagh said. “His ground-and-pound style, I don’t think we’ve really seen that before. He’s only had one fight. Very dominant takedown, dominant style of ground-and-pound, good positioning, and then, obviously, good awareness to his corner. I still have to remind myself it’s his second fight ever.”
Later on in the show, Danis himself made an appearance. When asked about his injury, the jiu-jitsu ace revealed that he is in “excruciating pain,” but the satisfaction of victory eases the pain:
“Terrible,” Danis said. “So bad. It’s so bad. I’m in excruciating pain for the past three days. It’s been so bad. It feels like I can’t move it, it’s swollen – it feels like someone is stabbing me in the knee over and over again. It’s really bad. But the only reason I’m getting through it is because, with the win, it takes all the pain away. Just hope I can get better soon.”
In regards to his return, Danis is opting for rehabilitation over surgery. He believes he’ll be able to regroup in time to stay active when 2019 is said and done. Danis would like to fight around October, and would like to fight twice more before the year is up:
“I think maybe October,” Danis said. “I want to get two more before the end of the year. Maybe October, December – I definitely want to fight twice. I definitely want to fight two more times.”
Of course, Danis is one of UFC star Conor McGregor’s main training partners. The two have developed quite the friendship with one another over the years. Shortly after his win, Danis said McGregor texted him to give him some insight into his performance. “The Notorious” was apparently impressed with Danis’ evolution in the standup department, and called his victory “easy work”:
“Yeah, I did actually,” Danis said. “He messaged me right away. I’m pretty sure he was watching live. He said how much more comfortable I looked on the feet, and stuff like that. He was just like, that’s light work, easy work. So, he was very complimentary towards the performance. He said, this guy has like 30 fights and I don’t have any amateur background and I went in there and made it look easy. And MSG where all my fans were, all my friends, and I went out there laughing basically.”
