Jon Jones has never been shy about kicking a guy while he’s on the mat. This time the guy was Dillon Danis, who got tech falled in a hurry by Arman Tsarukyan on Friday night at RAF 14 and dropped to 0-3 in RAF Wrestling.
Jones went to Instagram with a mock message of support that was about as sincere as a weigh-in handshake. Bloody Elbow caught the comment, which opened with Jones calling him the wrong name.
“Dennis congratulations on another dominating performance,” Jones wrote. “Way to not give it to them too easy I know Mike Tyson is somewhere so proud of you. Absolute stud, America’s best.”
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Dennis. Years of beef and he still gets the name wrong, which is either an accident or the funniest part of the whole thing.
The kicker, per Bloody Elbow, is that Danis appeared happy to get the attention. Of course he did. Nobody in combat sports has turned getting dunked on into a business model quite like him.
The RAF record
Tsarukyan was the latest name on a rough list. Before Friday’s bitter grudge match, Danis had already been beaten inside the distance by Colby Covington and Khamzat Chimaev in RAF Wrestling. The Chimaev loss went down as the second-fastest finish in the promotion’s history, so Danis now owns a piece of the RAF record book. Just the wrong piece.
He did have one moment worth mentioning. Danis got a takedown on Covington, which counts as a legitimate highlight when you consider the company he’s been keeping on the mat.
Otherwise, his RAF run has made more noise for what happens before and after the matches than during them. The chaos followed him again this time. Chuck Liddell has said he wants Tsarukyan punished after the Armenian sparked another brawl in RAF, according to Bloody Elbow.
The talk versus the tape
Danis is a decorated jiu-jitsu black belt and still undefeated in MMA. That second part comes with a big asterisk on activity. He’s fought three times since debuting in April 2018, which works out to a fight every couple of years if you’re being generous.
For years the New Yorker has claimed he’d handle anyone from Jones to Khabib Nurmagomedov in the cage. None of those fights have happened. What has happened is a string of losses in wrestling, plus crossovers into boxing that Bloody Elbow described as unproductive.
The weird part is it doesn’t seem to matter. Danis still pulls a huge audience every time he shows up somewhere, win or lose, and RAF clearly knows it. Three straight losses and he’s still one of the biggest draws on the card.
My take: Jones’ comment is cheap, and it’s also earned. When you spend the better part of a decade telling people you’d beat the best fighter of his generation, you don’t get to complain when that guy watches you get tech falled by a lightweight and grabs his phone. If Danis wants Jones to stop clowning him, the fix is simple. Win one. Or at least make it out of the first period against the next guy RAF lines up.
