Beneil Dariush has told the UFC he doesn’t want a fight, and it would take “something special” to change his mind.
The longtime lightweight contender said on “The Bohnfire,” MMA Junkie senior reporter Mike Bohn’s podcast, that he has informed his management and matchmaker Sean Shelby that he isn’t keen on any offers. His focus is the 20-plus fighters he now coaches out of his gym in Orange County, Calif. He won’t call it retirement, though, and he explained why.
“Retirement is a weird word. It’s like an American thing,” Dariush said. “I don’t want to be like, ‘I’m retired.’ Then two weeks later be like, ‘Oh, I feel like fighting again.’”
So what gets him back in? A reason worth the sacrifice. Dariush said a fight camp lets him be home without really being home, and the belt was the only thing that ever justified it.
“To go back to fighting, I would have to have something special as far as motivation goes,” he said. “Being a champion was always the goal, and I can basically disappear even though I’m in front of the family. I was willing to do it. I don’t know if I’m willing to do it just to fight.”
The resume is real. Dariush is 23-8-1 overall and 17-8-1 across 26 UFC fights, tied for the third-most wins in the history of the UFC’s 155-pound division. He’s beaten Mateusz Gamrot, Tony Ferguson, Renato Moicano and Diego Ferreira, and he’s been a pro since November 2009.
The recent stretch is the problem. Dariush is 1-4 in his last five, and all four losses were first-round knockouts, against Charles Oliveira, Arman Tsarukyan, Benoit Saint Denis and Quillan Salkilld. He’s outside the official UFC rankings for the first time since April 2015, and he acknowledged he’s further from a title shot than he’s ever been.
The coaching gig wasn’t the plan. When his longtime coach Rafael Cordeiro moved over to Tyson’s, fighters started showing up at Dariush’s gym, and the training partners turned into students. “I went from cornering one to two people to 20 to 25 people,” he said.
People noticed. His work in Marvin Vettori’s corner at UFC 332 in October got attention, though Dariush said the approach he took with Vettori isn’t one he’d use with most of his guys. Next up, he’s chief corner for Uros Medic against Kevin Holland on Nov. 14 at UFC 334, a welterweight main card bout at Madison Square Garden. After that he has fighters on Kelvin Gastelum’s Yuma Fight League card in Arizona, then Nikolay Veretennikov. The team still runs under Cordeiro’s Kings MMA banner, but Dariush said an independent outfit, Dariush Martial Arts, could become official in 2027.
He’s fielded calls for grappling matches, and he mentioned RAF as something that looks fun. “There’s guys who get to wrestle Jordan Burroughs,” he said. Even that only happens if it fits around the coaching schedule.
My take: this is a fighter answering the question straight, which I’ll take over a vague retirement tease any day. Four first-round knockout losses in five fights is a message, and Dariush heard it without anyone having to read it to him. He’s earned the right to leave the door cracked. For now, his next walk to the Octagon is Nov. 14 in New York, behind Uros Medic.
