The full extent of Beneil Dariush’s disastrous 2023 campaign has been revealed by his coach Rafael Cordeiro in a new interview as he revealed that the lightweight star was KO’d in training as well as in the Octagon.
Heading into last year everything seemed to be going Dariush’s way as he was on an eight-fight winning streak and was pushing towards title contention.
However, Cordeiro has now revealed that Dariush was already suffering from head traume even before his 1st round TKO loss to Charles Oliveira in June and a 64 second KO defeat against Arman Tsarukyan in December.
“Benny had a very rough year last year,” Cordeiro said on theTrocação Franca podcast. “He had two knockouts and three knockdowns. He was knocked down twice and knocked out once in the gym, and then fought Charles and was TKO’d. He fought Arman next and was knocked out.
“He had five situations during the year where his head was hurt. He’s a young kid, and it was a request I made for him to take some time.”
It seems like the 34-year-old Dariush did take some time off after that, but given that Cordeiro says he got back to sparring in March, just four months after his KO against Tsarukyan, questions have to be asked as to whether he’s come back too soon.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time that Dariush’s chin has been questioned as all the way back in 2017 he was KO’d by Edson Barboza and then a year later was knocked out in 42 seconds by Alexander Hernandez.
He defied expectations on that occasion by rebounding to go on a long winning streak, but though Cordeiro is doing his best to be supportive of his fighter, the underlying theme is that he appears to have concerns about Dariush’s neurological health as he looks towards a potential comeback fight.
“I don’t worry as a coach, I worry as a father. I have him as my kid and I don’t need to put him to real test for nothing right now,” Cordeiro said. “Benny won eight and lost two of his last 10 fights and some people want him to retire. That’s absurd. It’s disrespectful with his story, but since we can’t listen to noise or things we can’t control, we’ll focus on his health.”
“Let’s see the fights that make sense for him for the moment he’s physically recovered. I’m not talking about confidence. He has confidence. It’s more of a neurological thing. I want him to worry about it for a moment because he was hit a lot.”
