Beneil Dariush is opening his mind to the idea of a change in weight category following his fast knockout loss inside Madison Square Garden recently. At UFC 322, Dariush was stopped by strikes against Benoit Saint Denis sixteen seconds into the bout, and the stalwart lightweight is now entertaining applying a fresh coat of paint to things by moving up. Beyond the nature of the fight result, Dariush also missed weight leading into the fight, which could also inform a desire to move up to 170 pounds.
Speaking to Submission Radio in the wake of his recent setback, Dariush mentioned how he felt poised to have an all-time career performance as he felt dialed in with all facets of his preparation until fight week hurdles came up. Despite the weight miss where he came in at 157.2 pounds, Dariush mentioned how he felt fine in some regards on fight day, but did notice his inability to take a shot in the same wya he normally would.
Touching upon some post-fight activities, he has partaken in which may inform a departure from 155 pounds, Dariush said [via Sherdog],
“I was thinking to myself, ‘Maybe I’m going to move to 170.’ … I did some testing here and I did what’s called a DEXA scan. Basically I was at 185, 186 at 10% body fat. Which means I have like 19 pounds of fat to lose. Getting to zero is kind of dangerous — injuries become very common. I’m just going through the process to see if 155 is reasonable for me. I got the info from them and then I reached out to the UFC, so I’m going to go there this week and do some testing over there. Just to make sure.”
Beneil Dariush and his recent rough patch in the UFC
Beneil Dariush has had a bit of a tumultuous stretch as of late, with losses to Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan in recent times, beyond the aforementioned loss to BSD on November 15th.
Dariush was able to secure a win over former UFC lightweight title challenger Renato Moicano through this recent patch of bad fortune as Dariush earned a win over the Brazilian mixed martial artist at UFC 317 in June.