Beneil Dariush’s coach Rafael Cordeiro recently revealed that he’d advised him to take time out to recover after taking a lot of head trauma in 2023, and it seems that he’s listened, though the No.7 ranked lightweight is still hoping to return to the Octagon by the end of the summer.
The 35-year-old Dariush had suffered a TKO loss followed by a knockout in the Octagon last year, but in addition to that Cordeiro revealed last month that the star had also been knocked out once and dropped twice in training too, leading to calls for him to take an extended time-out from competing.
“The whole goal was to be patient and to rest my body and most importantly my brain,” Dariush told MMA Junkie Radio this week. “Everybody around me was telling me to rest. So, I said I wouldn’t do anything too crazy.
“Just grappling and hitting mitts for six months and then I would slowly start to put on the small gloves and do small-glove sparring, really focused on grappling still. That started in May, as in now. I had one session so far, I think, and it was really fun. I missed it quite a bit.”
Dariush admits he can be his own worst enemy since his desire to compete is still strong, but he’s tried to take on-board the wishes of those close to him, though he is determined to fight again this year.
“The issue with me is I’m going to have to kill the competitor inside of me one day. My desire is always to fight. That’s actually the problem. It gets in my way sometimes, but also it’s brought me where I am. I can’t complain about it too much. That being said, obviously I want to fight, but I’m also a person who believes that God has his plans, and they’re better plans.
“If his plan is I’m done, I’m done, but currently I don’t think that’s the situation. I think I’ll be back soon. If it was up to me, it would have been yesterday. But obviously I’m trying to be patient, listening to my coaches, my wife, my family, and hopefully either end of summer or early winter or something. I definitely want to get a fight in before the year ends is what I’m trying to say.”
