Beneil Dariush was targeting a fight against Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler, however, neither matchup came to fruition. Instead, the Iranian fighter will take on fellow lightweight competitor Mateusz Gamrot.
In his recent interview with The Schmo Dariush admitted that ‘Gamer’ wasn’t high on his priority list as he wanted to fight either Poirier or Chandler. During the interview, the 155-pounder admitted that he wasn’t sure if ‘The Diamond’ was even proposed a matchup and finally it came down to accepting a fight against the Pole.
Dariush said about fighting Gamrot:
“For me, I think skill-wise, he might be the most skilled guy out of everybody I just mentioned. So it’s super exciting for me personally. I know my management and my coaches were hoping for somebody ranked higher, but I’m just trying to fight the best guys.”
Dariush agreed to Schmo’s assumption that a potential win could place him next in line for a title fight against the winner of Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev matchup. Later he was asked to rank Gamrot’s grappling skills in comparison to the top fighters of the division:
“He’s definitely top three in terms of scrambling in our division. He’s great grappler, and his striking is good too. He knows how to set up his punches. I don’t know if his striking is like, uh, he what he prefers to do. I think he always looking for the takedown, but he’s a capable striker too, man. His grappling is really good. I would say he’s behind me, he might be able to outwrestle Islam, I don’t know, Islam and Charles. I would say just the three of us are ahead of him.”
Watch Beneil Dariush talk about fighting Gamrot below:
Beneil is currently enjoying a seven-fight winning streak and was scheduled to face Makhachev back in February, but he had to withdraw to an ankle injury. In his last fight at UFC 262, he defeated Tony Ferguson by a unanimous decision. He’s an acclaimed grappler who won the world No Gi championship on four different occasions.
Gamrot stacked up a for-fight winning streak with his most recent outing taking place at UFC on ESPN: Tsarukyan vs. Gamrot, where he defeated Arman Tsarukyan by a unanimous decision. His grappling acolytes are impressive as he’s a two-time ADCC European champion. He’s also a former KSW lightweight champion, who never lost the belt, but instead vacated it after signing a contract with the UFC.
UFC 280 is scheduled to take place on October 22nd at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
