When Renato Moicano was confirmed to replace Arman Tsarukyan for the lightweight title fight against Islam Makhachev at UFC 311, many UFC veterans backed Dana White’s decision. However, Dillon Danis wasn’t on board with it.
Danis wasted no time as he had slammed the matchup as “absolute garbage”, even offering to fly to Inglewood and save the main event. He also took a few liberties and launched a bigoted attack on Makhachev in the process.
“Perfect time to settle everything… I submit the inbred inside one round and send him back to his brother-and-sister parents. @moicanoufc is literally absolute garbage. This can’t be considered a title fight, and no one wants to see it. Let’s make it happen. I’m ready.”
Perfect time to settle everything. I’ll fly to LA tomorrow and fight @MAKHACHEVMMA no problem. I submit the inbred inside one round and send him back to his brother-and-sister parents. @moicanoufc is literally absolute garbage. This can’t be considered a title fight, and no one…
— Dillon Danis (@dillondanis) January 17, 2025
Danis’s last fight was in a boxing match with Logan Paul in October 2023. The MMA star not only lost badly, but his behavior after it, did not go down well with many. Danis was later sued for sharing private pictures of Logan’s supermodel partner Nina Agdal.
Danis has time and again faced backlash for taking his rants too far while not actually doing anything about it. He was contracted with Bellator for years but was released in the same month after only fighting twice under their banner. His last fight under the Bellator banner was in 2019.
Danis has tried to get himself signed up with UFC a number of times. He had even proposed a fight against lightweight prospect Paddy Pimblett but his tweet had fallen on deaf ears.
My UFC debut against Paddy Pimblett would be quite the show, the buildup alone would be electric! And if we want to add some fun, we could be coaches on The Ultimate Fighter and have our fight at the end. Imagine the entertainment that would generate. Let’s give the people what…
— Dillon Danis (@dillondanis) November 9, 2023
Perhaps the dig at Moicano can be attributed to another one of his possibly hopeless endeavors to get noticed by the Dana White-led promotion. Moicano, on the other hand, had the support of UFC veterans, who believed that the short notice might have worked in his favor.
Sonnen backed the underdog to beat Islam
UFC middleweight veteran Chael Sonnen contended that Islam is a dangerous man to prepare for. Having been in title fights against to-be legends in the octagon, Sonnen claimed that prolonged camps could cause “paralysis by analysis”.
“We’ve seen more upsets like this. I’ve seen this from the NCAA level to the Olympic Games, even to our sport. Boxing is just as guilty, where somebody gets an opportunity, they go in with a fresh mind, prepared body, and good things happen.”
Light heavyweight fighter Anthony Smith also agreed with Sonnen and reminded that Moicano was already in camp for months for his fight against Beneil Dariush. So he would be as prepared as anyone could be. Besides, there was no point worrying about the Islam fight since there was just not enough time to change anything.
However, Moicano did not prove them right and hardly put up a fight against Islam at UFC 311 on Saturday.
