Ian McCall was expected to be one of the cornerstones of the UFC’s flyweight division when it was launched in 2012. But while he’s been a regular on the scene, McCall has only had his hand raised in two of his six trips to the octagon.

McCall (13-5-1 MMA, 2-3-1 UFC) explained in a recent interview that he’s a “head case” and is taking steps to address the mental part of his game while still struggling to come to terms with his UFC 183 loss to John Lineker (25-7 MMA, 6-2 UFC).

“I only watched the fight once,” McCall said. “I didn’t get my ass kicked as bad as I thought. I just drew a blank. I remember I was so on-point. I’ve never been more on-point physically. And I just sh-t the bed mentally. Like, I got there and I was just like… . And I don’t doubt myself. I’m just sitting back there like, ‘I’m f-cked. This sucks. I feel like sh-t.’ It is what it is. That’s a part of my game, being a head case, I guess – which I am. I’m working with Vinny Shoreman, Joe Schilling’s mental coach – mind coach, I guess. Whatever you call it. So, you know, they can fix that.

“I lost to a guy who sucks. Realistically, he sucks. He’s basic. And I lost to him. So, whatever. It’s MMA. You can still lose and still become champ later. It could be worse.”

At UFC 156 in 2013, McCall dropped a decision to Joseph Benavidez (21-4 MMA, 8-2 UFC) of Team Alpha Male.

There’s a long simmering rivalry between McCall and the Team Alpha Male camp. This has McCall eying the camp – and Benavidez specifically – as his next opponent.

“I want to fight Joe Benavidez next,” McCall explained. “I’d like to. I need to beat up someone from Alpha Male, and he seems like a good candidate – and he’s ranked above me. I’ll fight anybody, you know me. I don’t care. To have all those douchebags kind of – like, I literally walked out to the cage and I turned to my left and I saw all those f-cking tools, shirts off, chest bumping, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a little distracting, I’m not going to lie. It was kind of funny.

“But I would love to just – OK, yeah, you beat me last time, you’re going to kick my ass again. Come on, let’s fight. I’m going to put him back to sleep again, like (Demetrious Johnson) did.”

If the situation between McCall and Team Alpha Male brings to mind images of high school cliques, McCall isn’t beyond basically admitting to a bit of an “outsider” vs. “frat guy” element to the feud.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m a douchebag too,” McCall said. “Let’s get this out there. But they just – this is going to sound even worse. I grew up fighting frat guys. That’s what we did in high school or college, just beat up frat dudes all the time. There was always kind of that rubbing on each other, I don’t like these guys that much. Words were said and I said something and back and forth. And, now I just – I don’t know. We like talking shit to each other. It’s kind of fun.”

Check out the above video, produced by our partner Rick J. Lee, to hear Dariush talk about his strengths and weaknesses, his fight with Cruickshank and his thoughts on the drug testing in the UFC.

And for complete coverage of UFC 183, check out the UFC Events section of the site.