Neiman Gracie recently took some time out of his busy schedule to give his thoughts on a potential fight between Charles Oliveira and his teammate Beneil Dariush. In fairness to Gracie, he is very busy indeed right now. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on his preparation for his next MMA fight at Bellator 290 on February 4th, 2023, where he will attempting to get back in the win column against Michael Lombardo. Regardless, Gracie still took the time to appear on an episode of MMA Fighting’s podcast Trocação Franca in order to break down how he sees a Dariush v Oliveira fight going:
“Watching Charles fight is so fun because you’re always wondering what will happen. He gets knocked down, he scores a knockdown. He’s always so fun to watch. This is going to be a great fight, maybe the fight of the year.”
“Their jiu-jitsu are different from one another. Charles’ jiu-jitsu is more of attacks from any position. He has many submissions up his sleeve, guillotines, triangles, millions of things. ‘Benny’s’ [jiu-jitsu] is different, he progresses more, wants to pass your guard, mount and try to submit you. Charles tries to submit you from any position, and that ends up putting Charles in a bit of danger sometimes because of how much he exposes himself. I think that’s one situation ‘Benny’ can take advantage of in the fight, Charles exposing himself, to try to progress and maybe even submit him.”
“I would say Charles’ best weapon, his biggest strength, is also his biggest weakness too, that style of going forward and giving his all in the fight. He goes out there walking forward to see what happens. Like I said, ‘Benny’ has jiu-jitsu and striking, and wrestling to neutralize his attacks. If ‘Benny’ fights smart like he’s been fighting his past [eight] fights with no losses, I believe he wins. But always be careful because Charles is super dangerous and can also submit you or knock you out at any moment.”
While Neiman Gracie feels resoundingly positive about the chances that Beneil Dariush has against Charles Oliveira, he’s also feeling positive about what the future will hold for him after he wins that fight too:
“Winning this, ‘Benny’ will fight for the title next. We believe so, but we can’t predict the future, especially when we’re talking about the UFC and Dana White, a man thinks one thing today but changes his mind on the next day. We do believe that he will be fighting the winner of Islam Makhachev and [Alexander Volkanovski] at the end of the year.”
“We’re waiting for the belt for a long, long time, but we know millions of things can happen. [Conor] McGregor might come back, you never know. Look at what Dana did with the Glover [Teixeira] fight. Two guys fought for the belt and he didn’t like what happened, so he put Glover and another guy [at UFC 283]. MMA still has a lot to change as a sport, it’s still too much of a show. And when it’s a show, we don’t know what the future holds.”
