Preview: UFC 311 ‘Makhachev vs. Tsarukyan 2’

Lightweights

#10 LW | Renato “Money” Moicano (20-5-1, 12-5 UFC) vs. #9 LW | Beneil Dariush (22-6-1, 16-6-1 UFC)

ODDS: Moicano (-175), Dariush (+145)

Just how far can Moicano carry this unexpected career renaissance? He was a top featherweight prospect when the UFC picked him up in 2014, but the Brazilian’s career got off to a slow start due to injuries, which made it a nice story when he made up for lost time by scoring a big win over Jeremy Stephens to vault him several steps up the featherweight ladder. Once Moicano found himself among the featherweight elite, he hit a hard ceiling in knockout losses to Jose Aldo and Chan Sung Jung. Moicano has always been offensively potent as both a striker and a grappler, but those two defeats raised the question about his ability to hang tough under pressure against harder hitters. From that standpoint, it was a surprise when Moicano’s next move was to jump up to lightweight, given that he would face even more powerful fights in that division; and indeed, the die seemed to have been cast when he suffered another knockout loss to Rafael Fiziev in his second bout up at 155 pounds. However, Moicano has hit a groove in the years since by bending but not breaking, which has resulted in some entertaining wars. Moicano also seemed to discover his personality—at least to the English-speaking world—late in 2022, which kept him a going concern even as he missed all of 2023, which in turn set him up for a breakout 2024 campaign. Moicano kicked off the year with a win over Drew Dober, then survived a near-knockout against Jalin Turner at UFC 300 to earn a main event spot against rising Frenchman Benoit St. Denis atop a card in Paris. St. Denis’ hard-charging style figured to be toxic for the Brazilian’s usual approach, but Moicano instead got the jump on his counterpart for a dominant and wrestling-heavy first round ahead of an eventual win via injury stoppage. Moicano still needs a few more wins to get into true title contention, but he could take a huge step towards that goal with a win over Dariush, whose momentum has cooled after a surprising late-career run of his own.

Dariush also came to the UFC in 2014 as a prospect with all the talent in the world, and he both lived up to that hype and greatly disappointed during his first half a decade on the roster. In a lot of his fights, Dariush looked like one of the sharpest competitors in the UFC, marrying knockout power and elite grappling skills with a pressure-heavy game that mixed both aggression and technique. Whenever Dariush lost, it typically exposed a fatal flaw of his simply not having the durability to get away with that style against better athletes. His 2017 defeat to Edson Barboza was a particularly stark example of Dariush cruising to an impressive victory up until the point that the former Ring of Combat champion suddenly knocked him unconscious. Once Dariush got run over by then-newcomer Alexander Hernandez in 2018, his championship window seemed to be closed—a thought that persisted even as he rebounded and kept racking up victories. However, around the time of his 2020 win over Drakkar Klose, something in Dariush’s mental makeup changed. He would get stunned, but rather than it resulting in a sudden knockout, it instead seemed to prompt Dariush to embrace a more violent style, selling out on offense and eventually finding a finish. Dariush was the lightweight division’s dark horse contender by the end of 2022, only for that all to come crashing down in 2023, as he got finished within a round by both Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan, though he did find some success in the former fight. That probably means he will settle in as a gatekeeper to the elite going forward, which is his role against a suddenly surging Moicano in a fight that’s hard to call. For most of his career, Moicano has typically only pivoted to wrestling once his striking success stalls out, but his last few fights have seen him cut out the risks of that approach and go right for the takedown, which has helped establish some advantages right from the jump. Even so, it’s unclear how well that initial plan will go against a standout wrestler and grappler like Dariush. It doesn’t seem likely to work, but then again, this doesn’t get much easier to call as a pure striking match. Moicano typically does the better job of setting a range—up until the point that he gets cracked—but it’s unclear how well he’ll be able to turn back a pressure game that’s both as dedicated and thoughtful as Dariush’s can be. At the same time, the Brazilian could wind up fine in a war of attrition, as while both men are historically chinny, Dariush is the only one who has gotten outright knocked out in recent years. At the end of the day, Moicano seems like the more reliant of the two on a ground game that might not be there for either man, and Dariush figures to hit the harder shots. The pick is Dariush via decision.

Jump To »
Makhachev vs. Tsarukyan
Dvalishvili vs. Nurmagomedov
Hill vs. Prochazka
Moicano vs. Dariush
de Ridder vs. Holland
The Prelims