It was not so long ago that Beneil Dariush was on an eight-fight winning streak, but his confidence has taken a knock after being finished via strikes in his last two fights against Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan, leaving the 34-year-old wondering whether he’s still got what it takes to compete at the very highest level in the sport.
“Remember how I told you guys I just didn’t feel like I showed up that fight [against Charles Oliveira]?” Dariush told Submission Radio. “No matter how I looked at it, I was like, ‘Man maybe I did something wrong in camp, I’m gonna go back and fix it.’ So that was my focus, I’m gonna go back and fix my camp and everything will be better.
“So I went in back into camp and just tried to do everything the best that I can and I had a really good camp for this fight. Great weight cut, great conditioning, everything I did was solid. My sparring looked great. And then I got to the fight and I didn’t show up again. So now it goes from is it an issue of not showing up to an issue of maybe I don’t have it anymore.”
Dariush has been in a similar position before after suffering two KO losses in the space of a year against Edson Barboza and Alexander Hernandez back in 2017-2018 before managing to turn things around, but this time he’s uncertain whether he can fix things again in order to achieve his goal to become a UFC champion.
“My goal in this game is to be the best that I can be. And I just remember spending a lot of time in prayer and trying to figure out if I was done back then. And I’m kind of in the same spot right now. I’m just trying to figure out like, do I go forward or am I done kind of deal? Because I’m not trying to be like a 50-50 fighter or even a top-10 fighter. I’m trying to be No. 1 in the world. I want to be the best, and I’m not going to settle for anything less than that.
“So, yeah, I guess just that’s how I deal with it. I go back to prayer and see what the Lord kind of shows me. Last time, I had a lot of issues physically with my neck and just, I said I would solve those issues and then go back into the octagon and see how that goes. And I did that. I had a big change in my performance. I went from being 0-3 to like 8-0. And so, the neck made a big difference. But this time I don’t have any health issues. My neck is pretty good overall. I don’t have any issues with it. So, it’s a different spot I’m in than I was back then.”
So it seems that Dariush has some soul-searching to do, and he’ll have plenty of time to do so as his coaches have advised him to take an extended hiatus in order to recover from the KO loss he suffered against Tsarukyan earlier this month.
“My coaches are asking me since I’ve had back-to-back concussions, they want me to take a good amount of time off,” Dariush said. “They haven’t really told me exactly how long that is so I’m kind of at their mercies. [Because] typically if you’re winning and you’re performing well, you could be like, ‘Hey coaches, I’m winning and I’m performing well.’ But currently I’m not performing well or winning so they get to have more control than usual as far as when I get to fight…If it was up to me I’d like to be back February-March but I think it’s gonna be a little longer than that.”
So, from the sounds of it Dariush wants to at least have one more fight to establish whether he wants to continue competing in the longer term.
“I just want to know if I still got it,” Dariush said. “That’s like my biggest thing. Because it’s one thing to go into the training room and perform really well, and it’s another thing to go into that octagon and perform really well. And if I don’t have it, I need to know so that way I can find a way to put my energy into something else and move forward, because there’s no point if I can’t be the best.”
