Dillon Danis has one professional mixed martial arts fight and one victory in his career, yet he is already certain that he is cut from a different cloth from other mixed martial artists. Danis will have another opportunity to back up these claims when he takes on 3-2 Max Humphrey at Bellator 222 this Friday, June 14, from Madison Square Garden. And though Danis has never been one to shy away from braggadocious claims, he conceded that Humphrey’s experience advantage at both the professional and MMA level presents a challenge for him:
“He challenges me with experience,” Danis told MMA Junkie at Bellator 222 media day. “He has like 16 fights amateur and pro. I think everybody has more experience than me. Everyone likes to talk like I’m (expletive) 15-0 or 30-0 because of my popularity and stuff, but I’m only 1-0. I think experience is maybe the only something that he has. But experience is not going to be enough.
“I’m a different level than everybody. I feel like there’s no one that can even compare to me and my mind in the game. That will show. I’m going to take that experience with me and keep going up until one day I’m going to fight for that belt, and I’m going to be like, ‘I’ve (expletive) seen everything.’”
But even though Dillon Danis considers himself to be a level above everyone else in the sport, he has still vowed to be patient and not rush his career, citing fellow Bellator athlete Aaron Pico as an example of what can happen when too much is received too soon:
“I’ve seen guys, they start off, and they go too fast,” Danis said. “Even with (Aaron) Pico, I think this is a tough fight to come back from from a knockout. How old is he? 23? Getting knocked out, dropping his first fight is not good for your brain. He has what? Ten, 15 years of fighting left? You shouldn’t be getting caught and put to sleep like that and keep fighting.”
What do you make of Dillon Danis’s comments that he is a “level above everybody” in MMA?