UFC 288 took quite the hit this week when it was announced that Charles Oliveira was pulling out of his highly anticipated No. 1 contender’s match against Beneil Dariush. It left the card looking pretty weak, and it left lightweight champion Islam Makhachev without a potential opponent for his eventual October title defense in Abu Dhabi.
Now we have word from Beneil Dariush that the UFC is looking to move the Oliveira bout back a month to UFC 289 in Vancouver, Canada. That card is being headlined by a third women’s bantamweight title fight between Amanda Nunes and Juliana Pena. In a new interview with The Schmo, Dariush laid out how the potential re-booking of his fight with “Do Bronx” went.
“This feels like the third or fourth time [it’s been cancelled], third I think, third time,” he said. “I’m just frustrated at this point and was looking forward to fighting May 6th. But it looks like the UFC wants to push it back.”
“They said they want to push the fight to June 10th,” he said. “By the way, I still don’t have a contract so I’m not sure if it’s for sure, but that’s what they told me they want to do, June 10th. At first I wasn’t about it because what if this guy pulls out? But then I said a couple of things: if this guy pulls out again, I want the title shot. And basically [I asked for] a pay bump too. And they agreed to both things, and that was pretty much it.
“They agreed to both things, so if he pulls out I get the title shot. That’s what I was told.”
“It’s hard to say no to that because the UFC, it seems on their part they’re doing everything to make this fight happen,” Dariush said. “So I said yeah let’s do it, let’s do June 10th. I agreed to June 10th and I got some kind of insurance just in case he pulls out.”
Obviously we’ll have to wait for Oliveira to confirm he’s healthy to fight in a month, and for contracts to be signed. But we’re optimistic that Dariush vs. Oliveira gets rebooked.
As for the title shot promises? This wouldn’t be the first time Dariush has been told one thing by UFC brass only for something else to go down. Most recently he was supposed to serve as the backup for Makhachev vs. Oliveira, only to have Alexander Volkanovski usurp his position. Hopefully Beneil doesn’t get passed over again, but the promotion certainly doesn’t seem eager to push him into a championship bout.