Dillon Danis has claimed that he was forced to pay a "hefty fee" to his own promoter in order to make his upcoming boxing fight with KSI a reality.
The Bellator MMA star has been out of action since 2019 with a knee injury, and is returning with a fight against British YouTube star KSI on January 14 in London. And despite claiming that he will make in the region of £1million for the bout, Danis says that a large chunk of his purse had to go to Bellator and promoter Scott Coker.
Danis reckons that the broadcasters had a lot to do with the fee he's been made to pay, with Showtime in America showing Bellator fights. They are major rivals with DAZN, who are staging the bout between he and KSI as their second pay-per-view event under the Misfits Boxing banner.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about how I had to do that," Danis explained of making the fight during a combative appearance on The MMA Hour last night. "Because Showtime and DAZN are rivals, so I had to pay a hefty fee [to Bellator]. I don't know if I'm supposed to be talking about how much, I don't want to get in trouble with Coker.
“It’s a lot of money. What I’m paying Coker to let me fight is more than probably most UFC [fighter earns for a fight]. I’m still with them. It would be different if I was with Showtime, because Showtime, they have a deal with them. But DAZN is like [a rival broadcaster].”
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Danis went 2-0 in Bellator after they signed him to make his MMA debut following a glittering career in jiu-jitsu, where he is a black belt. But a knee injury, as well as a failed surgery, has kept him from the action for what will be almost four years by the time he steps in the ring with KSI.
He was due to face Logan Paul on this card, which would have taken place in America, but when the American was injured during a WWE event he was forced to take a different fight. The feud between Danis and KSI isn't as heated, but he did anger the Brit and his promoters by skipping a press conference in London last week.
And once the bout with KSI is finished, he plans to return to the cage for Bellator. Speaking about Coker, he added: "He wants me to come back to MMA, his star. Obviously there's no-one in Bellator who's going to bring that kind of noise. Who brings that much hype?"
