Beneil Dariush is set to return to the octagon in 10 days when he takes on Evan Dunham at UFC 216. Dariush is coming off a heartbreaking loss to Edson Barboza and will look to get back on track when he takes on the gritty veteran, Dunham.
The quest starts on October 7th as Dariush is expected to open up the PPV main card and he is confident that his forward pressure will break Dunham.
“You’re going to see a lot of pressure from me,” Dariush said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’ll be on the ground or standing, I’m going to put a lot of pressure on him and there’s going to be one point where he just breaks and he’s going to fall under the pressure. That’s basically going to be the fight.”
Having freshly signed a new four fight deal with the UFC last week, Dariush is happy to finally be back in the octagon. One of the more active fighters on the roster, he was anxious to get another fight in before the end of the year.
“I asked for September or after September,” Dariush said. “Getting knocked out I just wanted to make sure I took the right amount of time and recover correctly and just make sure there are no lingering injuries that I don’t know about.”
He took much needed time off due to the knockout loss and feels rejuvenated going into this one.
“I feel great. This is one of the best camps I’ve ever had. We tweaked a couple of things here and there and I feel great with my conditioning, my weight loss, everything is in place.”
And despite the respect that he has for Dunham, he feels that he will have a significant advantage on the feet.
“If I had to guess his game plan, he’s going to look for that takedown,” Dariush said. “I don’t think he’s going to want to strike with me. You never know, he’s a tough veteran and he might just decide to do some striking. I feel like my striking is definitely in the top of the division so if he tries to do that I think it’ll be a short night for him.”
In Dariush’s last outing, he took on top 5 lightweight and brutal striker Edson Barboza. He was having a lot of success on the feet, continuously tagging Barboza before getting caught with a flying knee in the second round.
It looked as though Dariush was about to break into the upper echelon of the division until one slip up pushed him out of the top ten lightweight rankings.
“It was a hard pill to swallow,” Dariush explained. “Thank God I’ve been blessed with amazing coaches; my coaches really got me through it. I replayed that fight in my head 1000 times, watching myself I feel like if it was an 8 and a half minute fight, I was winning 8 minutes and 29 seconds of that fight basically. With that being said, it doesn’t change the fact that I was making mistakes in the fight and he was able to capitalize from one single mistake of mine and finished the fight.”
The loss pushed him back to number 12 in the rankings but Dariush doesn’t believe that the rankings make much sense.
“I think 6 months ago I was ranked number 7 or maybe more and now I’m number 12 even though I lost to the guy who is number 4 and now I’m number 12,” Dariush explained. “I feel like I had a good performance. I see guys who have a bunch of losses and they get one win and all of a sudden they’re back in the top 10. I don’t really get how the rankings work and I don’t really stress over it and I feel it’s more of a popularity contest and how much potential they think you have, that’s how they rank you.”
Dariush who trains at Kings MMA with Master Rafael Cordeiro will share the card with his teammate Fabricio Werdum who is taking on Derrick Lewis. He’s been continuously working with Glory kick boxer Giga Chikadze, UFC middleweight Marvin Vettori and lightweights Jason Gonzalez and Arthur Estrazulas in preparation for Dunham.
He often trains with taller and bigger fighters which led to the question of welterweight, a possibility that Dariush mentioned in the past. The thought was based mainly on the fact that his good friend Rafael dos Anjos was a former champion and top contender at lightweight and now that he’s moved up, Dariush doesn’t feel the need to entertain the thought of 170 at this point in his career.
Watching his good friend find success at welterweight has genuinely made Dariush happy.
“He’s the best I’m so happy,” Dariush gushed. “When he fought Tarec Saffiedine I was so nervous, coming off 2 losses he had a heavy heart. One of the reasons he didn’t finish Tarec was because he was really stressed and trying to do it right and not make mistakes. He fought a really smart fight and once he had that fight it was like I got this, this is no problem; I don’t feel overwhelmed at all. When he fought Magny he just came out like he’d normally come out at 155, fast explosive and fearless.”
For now, Dariush doesn’t have to worry about crossing paths with dos Anjos as he focuses on his climb back to the top of the division.
