Danis 'Too Controversial' For UFC

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Former Bellator fighter Dillon Danis is not Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bound.

For the better part of six years, Danis has not competed in any combat sport and has been doing his fighting on social media as a troll. He competed in a boxing match against Logan Paul, which turned out to be an utter disaster, as Danis was disqualified (watch highlights).

But after six years on the sidelines, Danis is scheduled for two massive fights in the coming weeks and months—he's boxing influencer-turned-boxer KSI on March 29 in London, and then, at some point, he's booked to fightTony Ferguson in the Global Fighting League (GFL) (details here).

Even though those are two massive fights that will get eyeballs, it wasn't his first choice. He wanted to fight inside the UFC Octagon - however, UFC COO Hunter Campbell doesn't want the trouble that follows Danis.

"I wanted to go to the UFC, that was the plan," Danis told Ariel Helwani recently. "So basically, we never got to Dana [White]. Apparently, he's the kind of guy who will be like, 'Yeah, we're going to sign you, yes, 100 percent.' I went to [UFC 295] and saw the matchmaker, Mick Maynard. He came to me and said, 'We saw the pop in the crowd for you, and we want to sign you. We need to talk.' I was like, okay, he can't say that and not mean it. "I was like, alright, we're in."

"We were talking to Hunter, and he was just like, he's going to make trouble, and we don't want that. He's too controversial," Danis revealed. "Basically just saying, I'm going to go in and make all of this hoo-ha and not fight. He was saying I need to prove that I'm going to fight in MMA because I'm too much of a liability if I hit someone on stage. I was like, at the end of the day, you guys want that...So it came down to him saying, 'We want you to fight; we want you to fight to prove that you're a MMA fighter."

With Danis being denied a UFC contract straight up, he tried to get into the promotion another way: season 33 of The Ultimate Fighter.

"So, The Ultimate Fighter was coming up, and I said, put me on The Ultimate Fighter," Danis said. "This is the one that's [Daniel Cormier] and Chael [Sonnen], that would've been pure cinema. They wanted to bring back the entertainment said of the show, but they were like, no, we don't want to do it."

"It would've been the biggest numbers they've ever had, especially my banter with DC. Plus, I was willing to show that I'll fight three guys to get into the UFC," Danis concluded. "Hunter was like, 'Nah dude, he's going to go into the house, make the most trouble and not fight." It's the same thing that everyone says. It was so f—king annoying."

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