Videos of Dillon Danis sparring and banging his head against a sauna railing raised a lot of eyebrows before his boxing match against Logan Paul.
Danis said the reality of those videos is a lot different than their appearance. He touted his work with former UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira and credited Mike Perry – Paul’s backup for the Oct. 14 boxing match – as inspiration for his self-inflicted head trauma in the heat.
“I only sparred Pereira,” said Danis on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “That’s f****** warming up. Do you know how hard Pereira hits? He hurt me, he was like, ‘Boa.’ Then we sparred a hard six rounds, 100 percent.”
Danis referred to his “security guard” standing off camera to confirm the intensity of the session.
“How many people would do that? You think Logan Paul could last 100 percent with Pereira? He was going 100 percent, so stop f****** discrediting my boxing,” he continued.
Paul mocked Danis’ previous sparring footage online.
When Paul got wind of Danis’ “head conditioning,” he speculated the jiu-jitsu specialist was looking for a way out of the fight. Paul wrote into their contract a clause where Danis will be forced to pay $100,000 if he pulls out of the fight with an injury that cannot be verified.
Danis said banging his head into wood was just another training method.
“You know how [Mike] Perry does that in the sauna, I was conditioning my head,” he said. “I’ve got a hard head.”
Asked why he released the odd video, Danis replied, “because it was content?”
So far, the buildup to the six-round, 195-pound exhibition boxing match has been dominated by Danis’ social media war against Paul and Paul’s fiancee, Nina Agdal. Former swimsuit cover model Agdal sued Danis in federal court over a video he posted that she said was illegally hacked from her phone. The case is pending.
Paul, who weighs well over 200 pounds in the offseason, is a heavy favorite to win the fight. Danis is returning to competition after a four-year layoff due to a serious knee injury. Asked about its status, Danis said, “for him, it’s fine.”
“I think when you have two knee surgeries, it will never be 100 percent,” Danis added. “Boxing is so easy compared to MMA. I think no one cares. The thing with me, I’m so hated, or now I guess I’m loved, everybody always just wants to put me down. I don’t mind it, because I bring it upon myself. But no one ever just gives me credit for anything.
“I feel like I deserve some respect for a lot of things I do.”