Beneil Dariush lacking confidence that Charles Oliveira fight will actually happen: “Not very confident this guy is going to show up”
UFC lightweight contender Beneil Dariush isn’t really expecting to fight Charles Oliveira later this year.
The longtime lightweight contender has been out of the cage since his clash with Mateusz Gamrot in October. In that outing at UFC 280, Dariush scored a lopsided unanimous decision win over ‘Gamer’. That victory was his eighth in a row, having previously defeated names such as Tony Ferguson and Drew Dober in that stretch.
Following his latest win, he was scheduled to face former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 288 in May. Sadly, the fight was canceled earlier this week, as ‘Do Bronx’ suffered an injury in training. However, while the two lightweights were later booked for UFC 289 in June, Dariush still has a bad feeling about the matchup.
Beneil Dariush discussed his bout with the Brazilian in a recent interview with ESPN MMA. There, the lightweight contender explained that he has a bad feeling Oliveira won’t show up in June. While Dariush was happy to get a booking with the former champion, he doesn’t believe it’ll actually happen.
Beneil Dariush discusses UFC 289 fight against Charles Oliveira
“I’m just trying to be as prepared as possible because I’m not very confident that this guy is going to show up,” Beneil Dariush stated in the interview with ESPN MMA. “So, I just try to be as prepared as possible for whoever shows up. On May 6th, I was willing to fight just about anybody, I offered to fight Arman Tsarukyan, I didn’t realize it but there are a lot of welterweight options too. I was open to that, but I didn’t know about them yet.”
He continued, “I want to fight Charles because he’s ranked number one and I think he’s a great fighter. It’s just, you know. The fight hasn’t happened, and I don’t have a lot of confidence that it will happen.”
What do you make of these comments? Do you think Beneil Dariush vs. Charles Oliveira will happen? Sound off in the comment section below PENN Nation!
