Rare Savage: So you started jiu-jitsu at 15 and since then you've obviously won lots of competitions. You’ve been the UKBJJA’s number one ranked black belt, won Naga European, all the rest of it. Is there a fight that sticks out the most for any reason and why?
Dan: You know I’ve had so many fun opportunities, but I'd say the one that stands out for me was in one of the first ever team grappling events in 2018 that I did with Polaris – a quintet event and I ended up fighting Sakuraba, Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba was a hero of mine even before I started grappling. For anyone that was in the game 15/20 years ago he was the man – kind of beyond the rules. He was the ‘Gracie killer’. He was the first one to prove that you could actually out grapple a Gracie.
'The Gracie Hunter'
Back in the day you couldn't touch those guys on the ground. It was basically if you go against them, you’d better knock them out because if they take you down, it's game over. You cannot out grapple these guys. And Sakuraba came in with his background in, catch wrestling and other forms of grappling and took it to them. He was submitting the Gracies and got the nickname, the Gracie Hunter. He was a real showman and would come and fight anyone.
Meeting Your Heroes
In my wildest dreams I never thought I’d compete against him. He was a different generation. There was no scenario where that was going to happen. That wasn't even something that I thought about. Then I got contacted by Polaris and they said, look, Sakuraba is running an event. I said, I'm in - you don't have to even tell me any more information.
Plot Twist
Then as it transpired it turned out it was a team grappling event …in Japan so it just kept getting better. I’d wanted to compete in Japan all my life. And then a little bit later on they announced that Sakuraba wouldn’t just be hosting it, he’d be competing in it as well.
Anyway, I got there and I met him, you know, this was just a dream come true for me. This was the day beforehand when we were doing some press and stuff. And I posted up a picture with him. I was so excited to meet him and shake his hand to have a picture. And I sort of joked saying ‘Maybe we'll even meet on the mats tomorrow’ never thinking all the variables would align for that to be the case.
So anyway one way or another it got to the final and I ended up competing against Sakaruba. It was something that I don’t think could be beaten by anything.
Rare Savage: So how was the actual fight?
Well I didn't submit him. It was a draw, but luckily, I’d already submitted two people in my previous fights and my team actually won the event.
Picture credit: BJJ Freaks
Dan will be hosting our Men's BJJ Camp in Portugal in September