Rafael dos Anjos wants to take part in a good, old-fashioned gym war with Dillon Danis.
In the mid-1990s, mixed martial arts contests were just beginning to become somewhat regulated, with the first UFC events bringing what was a previously underground spectacle to a semi-mainstream audience.
Before the Zuffa takeover of the UFC at the turn of the millennium, MMA was a bit like the wild west and with no real monetary rewards available, fights primarily took place just to solidify gym pride.
The greatest fighter from one team would challenge the greatest from another to a one-on-one challenge. Neutral referees would sometimes be involved but not always and these brutal fights would often end only when one man announced that he was unable to continue.
One of the more famous examples of this came when Brazilian Jiu Jitsu legend Rickson Gracie battered Japanese professional wrestler Yoji Anjo at a gym in Los Angeles in a fight that has gone down in legend in combat sports circles.
Gracie was a big inspiration for Rafael dos Anjos and the former UFC lightweight champion wants to follow in the BJJ icon’s footsteps by putting himself forward for a gym war of his own.
Dos Anjos has taken aim at Conor McGregor’s training partner, Dillon Danis, in recent days after Danis proved to be the target of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s post-fight confrontation following the main event of UFC 229 last weekend.
"I see a scared man here." https://t.co/YKh2eaIWue
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOE_UK) October 11, 2018
Danis has made several headlines since Saturday, offering to fight Dos Anjos without the involvement of an athletic commission and mocking another UFC lightweight, Kevin Lee, for wanting to change the terms of a grappling match that the pair had previously agreed to.
Lee insisted that he wasn’t comfortable putting up $100,000 of his own money for a submission-only grappling contest against Danis unless strikes were allowed.
But Dos Anjos, who was previously scheduled to fight McGregor only to be forced out of the defence of his lightweight title with an injury, has now put his name forward for a last-man-standing fight with Danis in either man’s gym.
Why don’t we do like you said to Kevin Lee? I put 100k you put 100k I can go to your gym or you come to my, we jump in the cage with no time whoever walks out take the 200k #yourmove
— Rafael dos Anjos (@RdosAnjosMMA) October 11, 2018
Ask you dad @TheNotoriousMMA for money 😉
— Rafael dos Anjos (@RdosAnjosMMA) October 11, 2018
Danis has only one MMA bout to his name, making a successful debut under the Bellator banner earlier this year.
While we doubt that two professional athletes will actually step foot in a training facility and throw down with no rules and no time limit, we just hope that it’s filmed if it does take place.
