Fight News: Bellator signs Dillon Danis
As far as MMA promotions go, Bellator has never really fit the mold. Conceived of as a tournament-based series to air on ESPN’s Spanish-speaking channel, ESPN Deportes, the organization originally set out to promote Latin-American and Spanish-speaking MMA stars. Or, in the case of its original lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez, a star simply with a last name that seemed to fit the bill. Seeking broader appeal, then-executive Bjorn Rebney ditched the Spanish-speaking angle but kept the tournament format, promoting it as “the toughest tournament in sports.” The UFC would never dream of basing its promotional model on a grind of constant tournaments, but the feeling was apparently that Bellator needed a gimmick of sorts to stand out.
When Scott Coker took over, the tournament format was de-emphasized, but the gimmickry didn’t stop. Known as a serious promoter in Strikeforce, where he helped make stars out of Luke Rockhold, Daniel Cormier, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Gilbert Melendez, Nick Diaz, and Fabricio Werdum, among others, Coker instead went to immediately push main events involving aging legends like Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Tito Ortiz (who defeated their middleweight champion), as well as famed street brawlers like “Dada 5000” (who nearly died in the cage) and Kimbo Slice (who passed away a few months after his last Bellator fight with “Dada”). The great, but past-prime Fedor Emelianenko saw his scheduled Bellator fight with UFC castaway Matt Mitrione cancelled on the day of the fight, with Mitrione citing illness. Fight announcements mirrored WWE interviews, and in the eyes of many fans this came at the expense of the promotion of legitimate top-tier talent like Eduardo Dantas, Marcos “Loro” Galvao, Michael Chandler, Mo Lawal, and a solid crop of marketable top contenders.
However, Bellator also seems to be taking an equally unique approach for a major promotion, but one focused on developing talent from the ground up. Recently Bellator was announced to have signed BJJ ace Dillon Danis, who gained notoriety in the MMA world over the past year as a training partner and BJJ coach for Conor McGregor. Danis, 23, is a resident of New Jersey and trains out of Marcelo Garcia’s New York City academy, where he is a black belt and one of the top competitors in the BJJ world. After winning world championships in gi and no gi as a brown belt, Danis has established himself on the black belt scene, particularly in no gi IBJJF competition and in professional grappling events like Metamoris and ADCC.
Bellator’s signing of Danis follows a pattern of signing American grappling superstars who want to fight MMA, but have not yet made their debut. Top shelf wrestlers including Ed Ruth, Tyrell Fortune, Shawn Bunch, and Aaron Pico are all signed to Bellator as well, and all were signed prior to making their MMA debuts. Pico, in fact, has still not fought MMA, despite being signed as a teenager when he was marked as the golden child of American freestyle wrestling. Much like Danis, we do not yet know the extent to which his amateur grappling career will be put on hold while he pursues MMA. Danis has indicated on social media that he aims to compete in ADCC 2017, and debut in MMA by the end of the year. On the BJJ front, world champion Rafael Lovato Jr. recently won his Bellator debut, though he was 4-0 going into the bout.
Unlike Bellator’s other unusual promotional decisions, this one is equal parts gamble and brilliant maneuver. Grappling sports – wrestling in particular – have long been feeders for high level MMA. There is, of course, no guarantee of success. While most elite wrestlers will have some success in MMA, there is no certainty they will reach the championship level (see the recent losses of NCAA champ and Bellator signee Bubba Jenkins), and wins alone are certainly no guarantee of popularity or marketability (see Ben Askren). But if Bellator can sign these athletes before they enter the game, and if just a few reach that top level, but do so within the Bellator promotion, it would be a coup of sorts, and for very little expense and risk.
More importantly, it gives Bellator an angle from which to compete with the UFC for talent. With the exception of CM Punk (thank you Sergio Da Silvia for pointing that out), the UFC does not usually sign fighters with zero professional experience. Even Satoshi Ishii, who was an Olympic gold medalist in Judo, in his early 20’s at the time, and so interested in pursuing MMA that he was brought in as a guest to attend UFC events, was not signed to the UFC right off the bat. It turned out to be a good move, as Ishii never seemed to take to MMA with the ease many had hoped. Bellator, however, is willing to sign prospects on their non-MMA credentials alone.
If Bellator hopes to compete with the UFC in the long run, it will need to build its own stars and television draws – not rely on one-off ratings pops. It will need to compete for talent. And as it stands, the UFC is the biggest magnet for unsigned prospects looking to make it big. Bellator cannot compete for talent on the UFC’s terms. Therefore, taking a gamble on the promise (or hope) of greatness in grapplers like Dillon Danis or Aaron Pico might be their smartest move yet. Time will tell, as it would take years for this approach to pay off, but if Bellator’s parent company Viacom is willing to see it through financially, the next few years could get very interesting in the Bellator promotion.
Writer: Kyle Antonelli
