“It’s definitely a decision I regret,” says a star of US boxing show The Ultimate Fighter, when people recognise him from his extensive gay porn DVD career.

25-year-old Dakota Cochrane (pictured) was known as ‘Danny’ when he appeared in 16 films for the Sean Cody all-male porn studio while studying in college.

“If I would have known what would happen I definitely wouldn’t have done it,” the hunky now admits to the MMA Fighting website. “But I had money issues and I needed help.

“I went there to do pictures, and they started throwing pretty high numbers in front of me. I didn’t really think. It was a big mistake.”

He’s not gay, and played his ‘roles’ in the films strictly for wads of cash, he insists. We’re told his girlfriend convinced him to quit the industry.

But he’s keen to get his past out in the open and have no secrets. “There’s going to be haters and people that don’t really care about it, and those people that don’t really care and actually know me, and that’s really what I’m really focused on is people who actually care about me as a person and know that was a mistake.”

And it seems his fellow fighters are OK with it. Ultimate Fighter contestant Mike Rio says: “If he’s a good fighter, it doesn’t matter what he did.” Even if he was gay, that’s no big deal.

“I had a teammate who was gay,” Rio told MMA Junkie “I had a bunch of workout partners that were gay. It’s just inevitable. I’m not about to alienate someone or not train with them because of their preference or past.

“If he’s a good training partner, he’s a good training partner. What am I supposed to do? Not train with the best guy in the room just because he had a preference? No, come on. That’s how you do not become the best. To be the best, you’ve got to train with the best.”

And here’s the show the guys are competing in… starts next week on American TV.