The lone miss at the scales during Friday’s UFC 322 weigh-in was Beneil Dariush, who came in 1.2lbs heavy for his lightweight fight with Benoit Saint-Denis.
Whether the botched weight cut would have any effect on the fight itself remained to be seen. Dariush was looking to build on a win over Renato Moicano, while BSD had won his last two bouts.
Dariush opened the fight with a leg kick, fanned on a punch, but moments later, the fight was over. Beneil would protest, but Benoit Saint-Denis had clobbered him, dropping him with a single punch. Dariush was face down, protest or not. The fast start by Dariush clearly backfired, as Saint-Denis landed a left hand over top of the ear in a clinch that followed a second leg kick by Dariush that had briefly taken BSD himself off his feet.
A whirlwind of chaos that ended in just sixteen seconds, a new lightweight knockout record. A statement, perhaps, by Saint-Denis, and certainly a tactical error by Dariush, who came out of the gate just a little too hot.
After the fight, BSD, a former soldier himself, shouted out military veterans as part of Veterans Week. “I couldn’t be more happy and privileged to fight here in Madison Square Garden,” he added, before saying he had both the BMF and lightweight titles on his mind.
Official Result: Benoit Saint-Denis def. Beneil Dariush by knockout, Round 1, 0:16
