Since being brought into Conor McGregor’s training camp as a JiuJitsu coach and partner, Dillon Danis’ stock has continued to rise in not only the JiuJitsu world, but also in the MMA world, despite the fact that Danis has never competed in an MMA bout.
The BJJ champion has continued to make headlines for his brash statements, as well as his repeated calling out of well known fighters such as Amir Khan. It’s those same antics that led to Danis’ black belt, Marcelo Garcia, suspending his student from the gym.
Now, in a very open and candid interview on The MMA Hour, Dillon Danis spoke freely about the situation with his longtime black belt:
“It was more of a suspension, but at this time, I don’t feel like I’m going back,” Danis told Ariel Helwani. “It wasn’t one thing, this just happened. Since I’ve been with Marcelo, we’ve had a couple of rifts. I love Marcelo to death, and I won’t say anything bad about him, I still love him, he was like my dad.”
“It’s hard to talk about for me, I had a lot of nights where I cried. That was my guy, he was my coach and everything, so it was hard for me to talk about. But we had a lot of differences because he really wants you to be like him. He wants you to be exactly like him, he wants you to always be smiling.”
“It’s understandable, but at the end of the day, if everybody acts the same, no one’s ever going to be different,” Danis continued. “And he makes the guys kind of be like that where they’re all like yes men.”
Despite the fact that Danis is a rather controversial figure in the media, he says he’s an extremely nice person, who refuses to be “fake”:
“I’m real, I don’t hide it,” Danis said. “I’m not gonna go to someone and be like ‘oss, bro.’ It’s a fake kind of environment, and it’s very big in jiu-jitsu, very big.”
“Just because I act the way I do doesn’t mean I’m not a nice person in the gym. Ask anybody that’s ever trained with me, anybody that’s ever met me, I’m one of the nicest, most respectful in the gym and outside the gym.”
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/11/2017.