It appears Islam
Makhachev and Charles
Oliveira won’t have their rematch at the Ultimate Fighting
Championship’s first pay-per-view card of next year.
While yet to be announced, UFC 297 is being targeted for Jan. 20 in
Toronto. Per a recent report from Ariel Helwani,
Oliveira (34-9) would attempt to reclaim the lightweight strap
against Makhachev (25-1) in the main event of the night. However,
Helwani’s report has been dismissed by UFC CEO Dana White who told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, “Anything is
possible, it’s whenever both are ready.” Helwani’s report was also
dismissed as “fake news” by Makhachev’s
manager, Ali Abdelaziz, who told Okamoto that the champ will be ready
to fight on March 9.
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Makhachev dropped Oliveira before submitting him to win the vacant
strap at UFC 280 last October. The Dagestani has since defended his
title twice against featherweight champion Alexander
Volkanovski, first via a closely contested decision in February
followed by a highlight-reel head kick knockout in October, while
Oliveira bounced back from the defeat with a dominant win over
Beneil
Dariush at UFC 289 in June.
While Makhachev was originally scheduled for a rematch against
Oliveira at UFC 294 last month, “do Bronx” was forced out after
being cut in sparring 10 days before the event. While he hasn’t
returned to training yet, Oliveira claims he will soon be ready to
do so.
Oliveira was among those who were caught unawares by the rumor of a
UFC 297 rematch. The 34-year-old recently said during a post-fight show at UFC Fight
Night 231 in Sao Paulo, “It was quite a deep cut. We don’t have any
scheduled fights at the moment, so we can take our time to get a
good recovery. So I might go back into within a week or so. No,
[not back in the gym], not yet.
“We just heard this in the locker room,” he added. “People were
asking us in messages. This is the first time we’ve heard about it.
But that’s the timeline, January maybe, so who knows.”