5 traditional grapplers who became dangerous strikers in the UFC

#5 Beneil Dariush

Beneil Dariush has improved his striking massively

While he hasn’t yet broken into the very elite level in the UFC, Iranian fighter Beneil Dariush may yet make that leap in the near future. And if he does – like Werdum and Dos Anjos before him – he’ll most likely have coach Rafael Cordeiro to thank. Dariush was the very definition of a one-dimensional grappler when he emerged in the UFC in 2014 and yet you’d never know that today.

Debuting with a win over the fading Charlie Brenneman, hopes were high for Dariush due to his stellar grappling history – he’d earned his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in just five years, and had become a world champion at blue, purple and brown belt. But his second UFC outing exposed a painful weakness in his striking and he was violently knocked out by Ramsey Nijem.

Despite winning his next five fights in a row, Dariush’s striking still didn’t seem fully developed – his decision over Michael Johnson in 2015 was via terrible judging, for instance, and he was largely outstruck. But by that point, he’d begun to train with Cordeiro and Kings MMA and an improvement was always likely.

Sure enough, in 2016 he became the first man to beat the dangerous James Vick, knocking the taller fighter silly in the first round, and he followed that up by beating skilled striker Rashid Magomedov and then going toe-to-toe with Edson Barboza – a truly deadly kickboxer. Dariush lost that fight but more than held his own, and if his striking continues to improve the way it has, then the sky is the limit for him.