Dillon Danis gives account of recent arrest, says bouncer who choked him impersonated a police officer

Dillon Danis was recently arrested for an altercation that occurred outside a bar in Seaside Heights, N.J., but the Bellator fighter explains his side of the story about that night and the bouncer involved.

Danis was charged with disorderly conduct after he allegedly “created a disturbance” which led to his arrest at the Beachcomber Bar and Grill. According to Danis, he was just trying to have fun with his friend, who just got married, and others with the wedding party.

“I thought weddings go all night, but it ended at 10 o’clock.,” Danis said during an interview on “The MMA Hour” on Monday. “So we’re like, ‘Let’s go to the city.’ We were gonna go to Manhattan, but he’s like, ‘A couple of my family members are at this bar around the corner.’ He’s like, ‘Can we just stop there before we go out?’ I was like, ‘It’s fine, whatever.’

“This place was like the f*cking sh*ttiest place you’ve ever seen in your f*cking life. There was literally three people inside. So we go, and this was the first time, for the wedding, I was allowed to (walk). I was on crutches until then. There’s pictures, I was on crutches every day, but for the wedding, because I wanted to take pictures, he (the doctor) said, ‘Okay, you’re only allowed to stand, but not walk without the crutches.’”

In March, Danis underwent reconstructive knee surgery that took seven hours to complete. As a result, he has been unable to train since and does not currently have a timetable for his return to action. His most recent MMA fight was against Max Humphrey at Bellator 222 in June 2019, a fight he won by armbar submission in the first round.

Danis continued to tell the story about the evening he was arrested, explaining how the group proceeded to the bar, which is when he was confronted by the doorman who asked for ID.

Danis explained that due to taking pictures for the wedding, he did not have his wallet with him because it would have looked bad in the photographs. “You know like when you wear a fitted suit and you have your wallet in your pocket?” Danis said. “It doesn’t look good for pictures. You know, you have a big square thing in your pockets.”

The events that led to Danis’ arrest stemmed from not having a proper ID to enter the bar. According to the bouncer, Chance, who talked about the incident on Al Iaquinta’s podcast, said the fighter Googled himself and showed him information on his phone.

“The funny thing is he said I Googled myself,” Danis said. “I showed him my age and my passport. I showed him my vaccination card. I was just like, I don’t have my wallet on me because we were taking pictures all day.”

According to Danis, the two men argued back and forth, which started to create a scene outside of the bar.

“Now, it’s becoming a thing,” Danis recalls. “I’m not allowed to move, so I’m standing on the boardwalk. I would have left, but when you’re in those places, you can’t call Uber because it takes an hour to come. So I’m standing there because I’m not allowed to walk because I don’t have the crutches, and then these guys start getting confrontational. …Then, they bring a bunch of the bartenders from inside, I swear it’s like nine people and they surround me.”

“These guys were so egotistical, they’re just trying to fight me,” Danis continued. “I’m just like, ‘No one touch me and we don’t have a problem.’…This one guy keeps tapping me on my head and is like, ‘What happens if I do touch you?’ I was like, ‘This f*cking guy, bro.’ I was like, ‘Bro, stop. I’m just trying to have fun, please don’t do that.’ He goes, ‘Okay, I’m going to do it again.’ He starts tapping me on the forehead. So then, a fight ensued.”

As Danis explains, during the scuffle, someone jumped on his back and said he was under arrest. At this point, Danis said he stopped fighting back because he had no interest in fighting against a police officer. However, as it turns out, the man who jumped on his back was not a police officer, but rather the bouncer.

“He’s in trouble for impersonating an officer, there’s like a whole thing that is going to court,” Danis said. “It will all get taken care of. That’s not even the guy that was touching me, he wasn’t even involved.”

Ultimately, Danis was arrested by real police officers and taken to jail. However, the fighter said it was a short time before he was released and his evening continued with his friends.

“All the cops were on my side, to be honest,” Danis said. “They put me in for like 20 minutes and then the cop drove us to another party.”