Dillon Danis says his altercation with Nate Diaz outside of Madison Square Garden was all Diaz’s fault.
Both Danis and Diaz were in attendance for UFC 281, and following the event, the two fighters got into a physical altercation outside of the arena, with Diaz slapping one of Danis’ teammates. But according to Danis, that run-in was actually the second time the two clashed that evening.
“That’s a whole different story that didn’t get on camera,” Danis said recently on The MMA Hour. “So we went out to go get a couple beers on the top. It was me and a couple friends, Craig Jones actually, and I see them. I see that guy he hangs out with, I don’t know his name, the smaller guy [Chris Avila], and I knew like, this dude is just like Anthony Taylor, they’re looking for f****** the most attention that they can get. He’s with Nate and then they’re coming, they’re coming, and I’m like, alright, this is going to be whatever.
“So they come and Nate is just looking at me and I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ And then his boy is like, ‘F*** you, man.’ [This is] inside the arena, and I don’t know what the f*** he was saying. They don’t really make sense. They’re all kind of, like, punch drunk. So I have no idea what he was saying, [mutters inaudibly,] and I’m just like, what? And he just throws his beer on me. Actually, it was a tequila and soda, which wasn’t that bad. So then I took my beer and I hit him in the face with it and everybody started brawling and the cops got involved.
“It was funny because one of my friends slipped on the beer, his friend slipped, it was going back and forth, and Nate was like, trying to separate it,” Danis continued. “I was going after Nate and his boys, and then Nate separated it, the whole thing happened, and then Nate tried to walk away and I was like, ‘Yeah, f*** you, walk away,’ or something. I don’t know. We got into it and then he starts coming back and then the cops took him out. No one knew about that. There’s a picture of me and the cops because they were restraining me, [but] the [police officer] was like, ‘Yo, I used to train at Marcelo’s, I got you, don’t worry about it. I saw he started it.’ Because he threw his drink first.”
According to Danis, all of that happened before the altercation outside that was ultimately caught on video, which according to Danis, still didn’t tell the full story.
“The night is over and we go outside … I’m talking to Audie [Attar], my back is turned towards the subway station and I’m talking to Audie, and then I get hit with an empty Snapple bottle or something,” Danis said. “So in my head I’m like, ‘This is some hecklers.’ Because there was a bunch of fans out there from the UFC, so I was like, ‘This is some guy heckling me or some homeless guy,’ and I turn around and it’s Nate and he’s just screaming and doing s***, and Audie is flipping out because his kids are there.
“[Attar] has a bunch of young kids and Audie is like, ‘Dude, my kids are here, please don’t do this,’ and they’re crying. And I’m standing there and we’re going back and forth and I’m like, ‘Yo, his kids are right here. If you want to, let’s go to’ — I don’t know what street I said but like, let’s go to the next street. Let’s not do it in front of the kids, the kids are freaking out. And then Audie is in the middle, the kids are there, and we keep going back and forth, talking s***, and then he comes up like, ‘Hey man, I’ve always had respect for you, Audie.’
“I don’t know what he was saying. So I’m behind Audie and he goes to me, ‘F*** you, don’t come that close to me.’ And I said, ‘What the f*** are you going to do about it?’ Then he kind of slapped my friend, and I came to him and go, ‘Let’s go over here to whatever, this street.’ ‘OK, I’ll meet you over there.’ And then it just kind of, that was it.”
Once a highly-regarded jiu-jitsu practitioner, in recent years Danis has become a lightning rod for controversy in the MMA community after aligning himself with Conor McGregor and adopting many “Notorious” characteristics. In fact, less than a week after his run-in with Diaz, Danis had a physical altercation with boxer Anthony Taylor and KSI, one he similarly wrote-off as simply being a victim of haters.
Those controversies are paying dividends for Danis though, as he is currently set to box KSI in January. And now, Danis says that Diaz is interested in doing the same.
“Apparently he wants to have a boxing match with me, after the KSI [match],” Danis concluded. “One-hundred percent [I’ll do it], MMA or boxing.”
