UFC Austin: Fame follows Beneil Dariush, but he's only concerned with fighting the best

When Beneil Dariush steps into the Octagon in The Moody Center on Saturday in Austin, Texas, to face Arman Tsarukyan in the main event of UFC Austin, it will be only a few weeks shy of the 10th anniversary of his debut in the UFC.

Much has changed since Dariush debuted as a 24-year-old with a submission victory of Charlie Brenneman in Duluth, Georgia. He's become one of the elite lightweights in the world and, even at 34, he's not done chasing a championship just yet. The UFC has grown by leaps and bounds and because it's reached mainstream status, the fighters are far more recognizable in public now than they were in 2014.

For Dariush, a very private man who works in a very public business, there has been one curiosity. Yes, he gets recognized now when he's out, but it's not generally everywhere.

"I get [recognized in public], but a little bit surprisingly, it's always at Costco," he told Yahoo Sports. "I don't know what it is about Costco. I guess maybe it's the younger generation which has just started a family and they have to go to Costco to shop and they also love fighting. But it's funny that it seems to happen more often than not at Costco."

When his career is done, he hopes to be able to fade into the background and not get recognized, becoming just another guy who picks up his groceries in bulk.

But until that day, which isn't close despite closing in on his 35th birthday, he's going to keep building a bigger name for himself. He'll do that by fighting the best fighters in the world, hence the reason he accepted a fight with Tsarukyan.

Dariush is ranked fourth at lightweight, four spots ahead of No. 8 Tsarukyan, and he said there's not much to gain status-wise from the fight. If he wins, he won't move up, with Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier being the ones ahead of him behind champion Islam Makhachev. If he loses, it will be his second in a row and he'll inevitably plummet in the rankings.

But Dariush isn't by any means trying to insinuate he's not motivated or that he doesn't see it as a big fight.

"In terms of status, yes, I don't gain much, but in terms of my own career, my goal when I started was to fight the best people and win a championship," he said. "I believe I have to fight the best guys in the world and he's one of them. I have to fight him and it's one of those wins you need on your [résumé] as you're trying to become a champion. It's not the fastest path, but it's the path that's going to lead me to the championship."

Dariush has already beaten Mateusz Gamrot, who defeated Tsarukyan in a classic bout in Las Vegas that was among the best of 2022. The Gamrot-Tsarukyan fight holds a special place for Dariush, and so it's good he'll wind up meeting both.

"Honestly, that fight, Gamrot and Tsarukyan, it's one of my favorite fights," Dariush said. "I really liked it and after I watched it, I called my manager and I said, 'I want to fight these guys.' That's how I ended up with the [Gamrot] fight and now here we are with [Tsarukyan]. Both of those guys are studs and that was a fight that could have gone either way. They're both very, very difficult challenges and like I said, these are the guys you have to defeat to put yourself in position to fight for the title."

Dariush hurt his chances of getting that title shot when he was knocked out by Oliveira in the first round of their bout in Vancouver at UFC 289 on June 10.

Dariush makes no excuses for the defeat, but insists he's better than he showed.

"For me, I was bad that night and it was in my opinion, probably the worst performance of my career," he said. "For whatever reason, it was. I just wasn't on and that's the best explanation I can give. Charles had a great night and he was the better man that night."

He's confident, though, heading into the fight on Saturday and believes his time in the game will be a difference.

"I've gained that experience by being in this sport and you don't realize it earlier, but when you've been through it, you understand how important that experience is," he said. "You can just chip away little by little and eventually create a big enough gap to get a finish. I feel like in this fight, my experience is going to play a huge role against Arman."