Probably a headline you didn’t expect to read.
Apart from being a poker player and reputed playboy millionaire, Dan Bilzerian is also a known UFC fan. The 41-year-old influencer even lost what’s believed to be more than $1 million when he bet on Donald Cerrone against Conor McGregor at UFC 246 in 2020.
Bilzerian and Cerrone are the two main characters in this story involving former UFC title contender Anthony Smith. As “Lionheart” told Michael Bisping in a recent episode of the Believe You Me podcast, it happened during his UFC 235 title fight with Jon Jones in 2019.
“When you get a title fight, they give you a bunch of tickets that are very, very close. So my mom, my wife, my manager’s mom, and, like two other people in my group are sitting front row. Very front row in Dana’s section,” he recalled.
“I’m in the Octagon and while this is happening, Jon Jones is making his way to the Octagon. Dan Bilzerian and another fighter… it was Donald Cerrone. They come and they want to sit down and watch the fight. But they’re f—ng hammered. Just shithouse drunk. They tell (my companions) that those were their seats.”
Smith says his wife and mother had no clue who Bilzerian was, and that’s when it all went down.
“My mom doesn’t know Dan Bilzerian or Donald Cerrone,” he said. “My wife knows who Donald is, but she doesn’t know him (personally), and she doesn’t know who the f—k this short, tight shirt, funky-ass hat-wearing guy is.
“(My mom) has no idea he was some f—ng millionaire. She just knows that these are her seats and she’s about to watch her son fight for a world title.
“They kind of go back-and-forth a little bit, and literally, Dan Bilzerian and Donald Cerrone removed my mom and wife from their seats while I’m getting ready to fight Jon Jones. I was f—ng furious,” Smith continued.
“They go back and forth and (Dan is) being a dick. And then turns out, they just made everybody slide, so they slid the whole row so that my mom and wife could still be close in the front row. But for whatever reason, Donald and Dan Bilzerian wanted those goddamn seats.”
The story would’ve ended there, but Smith had a few more details.
“Dan ends up being next to my mom, and during the fight, is watching porn on his phone. So my mom was super uncomfortable, she was weirded out. She’s a quiet lady, very shy. It was a whole f—ng ordeal.”
Unfortunately, Smith lost that fight against Jones via decision, and finding out what happened after the fact is, indeed, an insult to injury.
“Had I seen Dan Bilzerian… ‘Cause I found out about it right after I got to the back. And if I had seen him then, I would’ve f—ng torn his head off, I was so mad.”