Conor McGregor has hit out at top UFC lightweight Beneil Dariush, branding the Iranian fighter the "biggest nobody in the company".
Dariush is currently ranked No.6 in the promotion's 155lb rankings, two spots above McGregor, and is riding a seven-fight winning streak. However, that didn't stop the Irishman from having a dig at his credibility as a contender, declaring the California-based fighter attracts very little fan interest.
McGregor has managed to remain one of the most talked about and called out fighters in the promotion despite being sidelined for the better part of a year with a broken leg. And Dariush is one fighter frustrated by the prospect of the Irishman returning to massive fights, including a possible shot at the lightweight title.
After Dariush expressed his annoyance at Charles Oliveira, who is the champion in all but name after being stripped for missing weight this month, pushing for a fight with McGregor, the Irishman hit back with his latest tweet-and-delete. “Beneil Dariush is the biggest nobody in the company,” he declared, before hastily deleting the post.
McGregor's tweet caused annoyance in the MMA community as middleweight contender Marvin Vettori leapt to the Iranian's defence with a threatening message of his own. He responded: "What a b****. You couldn’t last two minutes with Beneil and that’s just a fact. You are s***bag, I hope to see you soon."
The Irishman was likely hitting back after Dariush expressed further frustrations at Oliveira's entertaining of a potential fight with McGregor. The Brazilian is keen for a big money fight against a man who has appeared in seven of the UFC's top 10 highest-selling pay-per-view events in history.
But after losing his last two, and holding an unimpressive 1-3 record at lightweight in the promotion, McGregor is not viewed as a legitimate contender in an athletic sense. Since McGregor returned from his boxing secondment against Floyd Mayweather in 2017 to face Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, Dariush has won seven consecutive fights to McGregor's three losses and one win.
“What actually is really bothering me is Charles Oliveira,” Dariush told MMAFighting. “He’s talking about wanting to fight Conor, and he talks about how these guys never gave him a shot when he was outside the top five, blah, blah, blah."
Dariush and Oliveira had been scheduled to fight in October 2020, but the fight was cancelled and the Brazilian eventually faced and beat Tony Ferguson. That set him up for a shot at the belt that Khabib Nurmagomedov had vacated the previous October in early 2021.
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Oliveira defeated Michael Chandler for the belt and defended against Dustin Poirier before facing Justin Gaethje this month in his second defence. He comfortably submitted Gaethje within a round, but lost his belt after missing weight by half-a-pound.
“He was supposed to fight me, bailed, went and fought Tony Ferguson," Dariush continued. "And now instead of fighting actual contenders, he wants to go fight Conor? He wants to go fight Nate Diaz? This is hypocritical, man. This is the only thing that’s bothering me.
“I understand the media has their thing, I understand the UFC has their part, but for him to be chasing a unicorn? It’s just super frustrating. There’s two clear contenders in front of you and you’re trying to chase a unicorn.
"And no one knows when Conor is going to fight again. The guy might not even fight this year. He might just be like, ‘Oh, the leg is taking too long. I’ll fight next year.’ Whatever. What is going on here? Make it make sense. It just doesn’t make sense.”
