Poor Beneil Dariush seems like he is the odd man out at the moment, and everyone just forgot about him. He is riding a seven-fight win streak and is coming off a very dominant win over Tony Ferguson.
With the momentum swinging in favor of Islam Makhachev to get the title shot against Charles Oliveria, it leaves Dariush without a fight. Dariush and Makhachev were supposed to fight in February; however, Dariush broke his leg.
Dariush tried to get healthy to make the fight happen in July, but it looks like it won’t happen, and he is looking at an August/September timeframe.
“Yeah, actually, I told UFC end of August. September is the earliest I can get back. Man, I really wanted the July fight,” Dariush told The Schmo recently. “The problem is, once my leg starts to get tired, the chances of rolling my ankle start to happen. So, I’m not really able to put in like a strong camp. I don’t want to go into a five-round fight with the cardio of two rounds. You know, it will put a lot of stress on my mind and I don’t like that and I don’t want to fight like that.”
With Dariush not fighting until September, he wants to fight Dustin Poirier or Michael Chandler, who are both ranked above him. He doesn’t want to fight Justin Gathje as he sees him as a friend.
“If they give [the title shot] to Islam, then I would want either Dustin Poirier or Michael Chandler because I think those are the guys right now. They’re the guys that are ahead of me,” Dariush said. “I wouldn’t really want to go against Justin, were buddies, but even if I had to, he’s out right now for a while. I spoke with him and he’s not coming back anytime soon. He always says I need a full camp and I need time to rest. So I know that.”
“So it would have to be Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler, who first honestly, at this point, it doesn’t matter because I feel like, I know Dustin is ranked number one or number two, but even if I beat him, somehow he’s gonna be number four and I’m going to be number seven, the way they do the ranking. So it just doesn’t make sense. I don’t really care.”
Dariush is annoyed that Chandler and Makhachev are both above him in the rankings at the moment when Dariush was ranked No. 3 earlier this year.
“I want to know who does the rankings so I can ask them ‘why’? Like, what’s the idea behind these guys being in front of me for example, I understand Islam is on a big win streak but he never actually beat a top 10 or a top five guy. I have wins over both of those, the top 10 and a top five. Michael Chandler- do I even have to explain myself? I love the guy. I think he’s a great dude. I respect him in so many ways, but he’s 2-2 in UFC. And it wasn’t like he beat guys that haven’t already beat. So I don’t know. I could talk about the rankings all day. But at this point, I’m just whatever. They’re just clowns at this point,” Dariush said.
