Manager warns UFC lightweights about the consequences of turning down Beneil Dariush

Beneil Dariush was slated to fight the No.1-ranked lightweight Charles Oliveira at UFC 288 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, next month. However, an undisclosed injury forced Oliveira out of the May 6 card and their bout has reportedly been postponed to UFC 289 in June.

Dariush's manager, Ali Abdelaziz, revealed that all fighters ranked higher than his client in the rankings refused to sign on as replacements. The Dominance MMA CEO tweeted:

"Just to be clear, anyone who is ahead of @beneildariush in the rankings and didn’t have a fight turned him down, here is the plan Beneil will fight Oliveira June 6th, he will smash him and after that fight Islam for the title. Any of these cheerleaders out there talking sit back"

Abdelaziz also confidently suggested that Makhachev's next title defense will be against Dariush after he emerges victorious against 'do Bronx'.

Check out Ali Abdelaziz's tweet below:

Beneil Dariush is currently ranked No.4 with the only other fighters above him (apart from Charles Oliveira) being Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier. Notably, Gaethje and champion Islam Makhachev are both managed by Abdelaziz, so the tweet could be a dig at Poirier, who hasn't competed since November last year.

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Charles Oliveira speaks out on decision to withdraw from UFC 288 fight against Beneil Dariush

Charles Oliveira explained his decision to withdraw from the fight against Beneil Dariush at UFC 288.

The former lightweight champion took to Instagram to elaborate on his withdrawal from UFC 288 on his stories. He did not specify the nature of his injury but maintained that it was minor:

“I wasn’t able to train, I got injured during wrestling practice.I tried to train, I tried to do everything I could but we couldn’t, so we pulled out of the fight... I have to stay [away from training] for a few days so I can go back to training soon, and then we’ll reschedule the fight. I’ll be back to training pretty soon. That’s it, I had a small injury and decided to pull out so I wouldn’t fight injured. We’ve made that mistake once and I didn’t want to do it again... We’re taking one step back so we can take one, two, three steps forward soon.” [via MMA Fighting]