American mixed martial artist Dillon Danis has loaned a helping hand to a bullied teenager, offering to pay for self defence lessons.
The 26-year-old, who fights in Bellator's welterweight division, offered to pay for the Baltimore teenager boy to attend jiu-jitsu lessons at a nearby gym, after disturbing footage surfaced online.
The video showed the boy being battered by a group of larger students in a high school bathroom, who made him take his glasses off before beating him up. At least eight other students were present during the incident, with at least three striking the victim as someone stood by filming.
New Jersey native Danis, who is one of the MMA world's more polarising figures, put a call out on social media hoping to get in touch with the bullied boy so he could offer his help.
"These videos break my heart. Nobody should have to go through this. If anyone knows how to contact him I wanna get him into martial arts immediately," he said on Twitter.
Danis was eventually put in touch with the 15-year-old boy, organising a membership for him at a nearby gym as well as a ride to and from training.
Danis, a jiu-jitsu ace with a 2-0 professional MMA record, has since floated the idea of starting a non-profit organisation to help bullied children get mixed martial arts training.