American dominance in the UFC is a memory, and the upcoming UFC Freedom 250 card might serve as the proof. On paper, the event features 8 Americans competing across 7 total fights, with only a few well-known names representing the sport’s dominance in the country. Other than Justin Gaethje, Sean O’Malley, and Michael Chandler, there are no widely known American fighters on the card to help commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. And herein lies a painful truth: the country no longer rules the UFC as it once did, and some of its biggest stars are walking into June 14 with very real questions surrounding them.

Ahead of his bout with Quillan Salkilld at UFC Perth this weekend, UFC lightweight contender Beneil Dariush was asked about exactly that: Whether American fighters on the White House card could be in danger of getting knocked. His response? It was straightforward, honest, and grounded in perspective.

“Yeah, timing is everything, bro,” Dariush told Andrew Whitelaw during an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports. “Sometimes America is not doing so good in MMA, and this seems to be that time, you know what I mean.

“There have been times where we’ve had like four Brazilian champions, and then there’s been times there’s been a bunch of American champions, bunch of wrestlers.”

Beneil Dariush referred back to a time in the UFC when American champions were at the top. Demetrious Johnson, TJ Dillashaw, Chris Weidman, Luke Rockhold, Jon Jones, and Tyron Woodley were all part of a period when American fighters seemed to hold belts in almost every major division.

America was not just producing contenders; it was setting the benchmark. But, according to the 36-year-old, that is not where things are right now.

“So we had like a pretty good group of guys who were champions at the same time,” he added. “But it’s just that’s normal, things change. And timing-wise, we’re just having bad timing.”

Perhaps this is the simplest way to understand the current situation. The United States still has stars, depth, and champion-caliber fighters. However, supremacy in MMA is cyclical. Brazil has had an era, Russia is now living through one, and other countries continue to rise.

Beneil Dariush believes that America’s current slump is not the result of a collapse; it is timing. And timing, in fighting, changes everything. As the UFC’s White House card approaches, the performance of its American fighters will provide a clear snapshot of the nation’s current standing in the sport.

Will UFC Freedom 250 also continue the slump?

That is where UFC Freedom 250 becomes an intriguing test of American MMA’s true standing. On paper, the card looks heavily American, with eight of the fourteen fighters booked being from the United States: Justin Gaethje, Sean O’Malley, Michael Chandler, Bo Nickal, Kyle Daukaus, Steve Garcia, Derrick Lewis, and Josh Hokit.

However, as the contests are broken down, the strong American presence shows itself to be less dominant than it initially seemed. Only three Americans are currently favored to win: O’Malley, Nickal, and Hokit. However, even that statistic is accompanied by an asterisk. Nickal has an advantage over fellow American Daukaus, whereas Hokit is favored over fellow countryman Lewis.

In other words, those wins wouldn’t come at the expense of international opposition. Strip away the all-American matchups, and technically just one U.S. fighter, Sean O’Malley, stands as a clear favorite over a non-American opponent on the entire card as he goes up against Aiemann Zahabi.

Then there’s the rising concern around Justin Gaethje. America’s greatest hope at the top of the bill has a brutal assignment against Ilia Topuria, who many argue is now the best MMA fighter in the world. Even Colby Covington confirmed this, saying that Gaethje could be “slaughtered” by ‘El Matador’ come fight night.

“You’d think that there’d maybe be some favorable matchups for the Americans,” Covington told Daniel Cormier. “To send Gaethje out there to get slaughtered by Topuria, who’s the best fighter on the planet right now? No one can dispute that.

“The way he’s finishing these guys like Max Holloway, Alexander Volkanovski, and Charles Oliveira, he’s just on another level right now, and he’s in his prime. Gaethje is on his way down, and there’s no beating Father Time.”

So when the cage door closes at Freedom 250, the question won’t just be whether America wins—it will be whether its fighters can prove Beneil Dariush right and show that this is simply bad timing rather than a true changing of the guard.