A former mainstay at the gym said all the recent drama at Glory MMA and Fitness turned the team into the stuff of a reality show.
Grant Dawson hasn’t lost a fight since 2016, long before he made his way to the UFC in 2019. At the time, he was at Glory MMA, headed up by James Krause near Kansas City, Mo. He since has moved to American Top Team in South Florida, but says he had nothing to do with the craziness at Glory.
The gym and founder James Krause have been embroiled in one of MMA’s biggest controversies caused by suspicious betting activity surrounding a fight between Shayilan Nuerdanbieke and Darrick Minner. Several government agencies, including the FBI, are investigating the UFC over concerns of fight fixing. At the center of it all is former fighter and coach Krause, who cornered Minner during the first-round TKO loss to Nuerdanbieke that set everything in motion.
In the wake of the scandal, the UFC barred Krause from fighting and cornering, and said anyone who continues to train at his gym can be considered out of the UFC, as well. But Dawson said he was out ahead of the drama.
“If Glory MMA and Fitness was a TV show and we threw in all of the things that have been going on there, you would say, ‘Oh, the ratings must be down and they’re just trying to make the show exciting again,’ because no way all of this stuff has happened,” Dawson recently told MMA Junkie Radio. “This is real life. Glory MMA and Fitness is kind of the new ‘Tiger King.'”
Dawson (19-1-1 MMA, 7-0-1 UFC) said he changed gyms after he fought to a majority draw with Ricky Glenn in October 2021 in a fight in which he was more than a 5-1 favorite.
“(The gym drama) had nothing to do with me moving,” Dawson said. “I had a really close fight with Leonardo Santos and I (got a post-fight bonus). In my head, I thought that I needed to make a change. In my heart, I knew I needed to leave the gym and find a bigger gym and find a new pond to try to be a part of. But instead, I took the coward’s way out and I bought a house with that $50K (bonus).
“Then I had a co-main event spot on a card against Ricky Glenn, who I was a -550 favored against, and I dropped the ball. I went to a draw with him, and it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was the sign that I needed. It was the thing that I needed. So I decided that I was going to make a move after that fight. After I left, things kind of went crazy – but it had nothing to do with me.”
Dawson said he remains friendly with Krause, despite the investigation, and thinks he’ll have a positive outcome.
“I tell people all the time, James has been nothing but a good person to me,” Dawson said. “In my book, we’re solid. He’s a good guy. He’s always been good to me. He’s always been somebody that I considered a friend back in the day. We aren’t as close as we were, obviously, but he’s somebody that I really hope that these things get figured out. I don’t know what’s going on; I just hear things. But it sounds like it’s about to get figured out and I think that he’ll be on a good end of it.”
Dawson is scheduled to face Damir Ismagulov on July 1 at the UFC’s Fight Night event in Las Vegas. He has back-to-back submission wins following his draw with Glenn.
“I think I’m only going to get one more in this year,” he said. “The inactivity since I joined the UFC has just been part of life now. I make a lot more money than I made outside the UFC, so I can afford not to fight every couple of months. I definitely want to keep busy, but I just don’t see it happening.
“I think I’m going to beat Damir and I think I’m going to have one of the best performances of my career, and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find me a fight after that. I’m just hoping that we can get something done before it’s another nine months. I hate these long layoffs.”
