Logan Paul is heavily favored to beat Dillon Danis when they box in October, but those odds shift if his alternate opponent ends up fighting.
If Danis is unable to compete or drops off the card for any reason, UFC vet and current BKFC star Mike Perry will face Paul on the Oct. 14 card headlined by KSI vs. Tommy Fury. While he doesn’t have a lot of boxing experience, Perry does hold a recent win over 30-fight veteran Michael Seals in a mixed-rules bout in Triad Combat.
More importantly, Perry has had many fights where he’s just charged forward and demolished his opposition with brutal knockout power. That’s why UFC welterweight Matt Brown believes Paul should hope Danis shows up, because his chances of winning are greatly diminished if Perry does.
“He does not want to f*** with Mike Perry,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Mike Perry’s not a great boxer either, but he doesn’t give a f***.
“He comes forward and throws bombs. I just watched him versus [Michael ‘Venom’ Page] in bare knuckle the other day, and it was like he has no technique at all. He just walks forward and throws, and he doesn’t look good doing it at all, but it f****** gets the job done. He’s praying that Dillon Danis shows up.”
The concern over Danis making it to the fight stems from a four-year absence from combat sports. He also dropped out of a scheduled boxing match against KSI in January.
Danis received a ton of criticism for not showing up, which led to Perry being secured as a backup.
Brown doesn’t totally discount Danis’ chances of actually beating Paul if they do face off. While he’s unfamiliar with Paul’s skill as a boxer, Brown knows that at worst, Danis is a gifted athlete from a background in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as well as his pair of MMA fights in Bellator.
By that metric alone, Brown expects Danis to test Paul on the feet, though he can’t offer a prediction on who might win.
“I’ll tell you what, if Dillon does make it to the fight — we have no clue if he’s actually going to [fight] — but if he does, we shouldn’t discount Dillon,” Brown said. “He is a really, really good athlete. He has been doing standup for a while now.
“He’s his own worst enemy. He backs out of these fights, talks all this stupid s***, says some of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in my life, and just starts feuds with f******* completely wrong people. Like f****** Gordon Ryan and Garry Tonon. Why would you start a feud with those guys? They thrive on that s***.
“But he is a f****** athlete. I will say probably just on an athletic playing field, he’s got to be comparable to Logan Paul as an athlete, I think.”
If there’s one area where Brown credits Danis’ superiority over Paul, it’s his pre-fight trash talk.
Ever since the fight was announced, Danis has gone for the jugular, aiming personal shots at the 28-year-old Ohio native and his fiancée, Nina Agdal.
“It’s some very high level s*** talking from Dillon Danis,” Brown said. “I can tell you that much. I scrolled through some of his social media feeds the other day, and I was like holy s***.
“If you look at the comments, Dillon Danis went from the biggest laughing stock in MMA history to just a f****** legend. Everybody’s like this dude is a f****** killer.”
