Charles
Oliveira made his future plans abundantly clear following his
first-round finish of Beneil
Dariush in the UFC
289 co-headliner.
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Oliveira’s target, of course, is a rematch with Islam
Makhachev, who defeated “Do Bronx” via second-round submission
to capture lightweight gold at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi last
October.
“Look, who’s got the belt?” Oliveira said via translator at
Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “He’s got the belt, and I
want to be a champion, so I have to go through him. Of course, I
want to fight him.
“But right now, I don’t want to worry about it. I want to go back
to my family back home, relax a little bit, and let my team decide
that.”
Oliveira made short work of Dariush, who entered UFC 289 on an
eight-bout winning streak and would have established himself as the
next No. 1 contender with a victory. Instead, Oliveira held his own
with Dariush on the canvas before rocking him on the feet with a
head kick and punches. With Dariush in desperation mode on the mat,
the Brazilian sealed his victory with ground-and-pound from top
position.
“If you look at how that guy turned his career around from like
2016 to today, he’s a completely different fighter. It’s amazing
what he’s done and he looked like a world beater tonight,” UFC
president Dana White said at the post-fight press conference. “I’m
excited for him and Islam to fight again.”
White paused to clarify that nothing is official as far as an
Oliveira-Makhachev rematch — it’s just the next logical step
following what transpired at UFC 289.
“Let’s not play games,” White said. “That fight makes sense, that’s
the fight that should happen, and I’m excited to see it again.”
The first meeting was largely dominated by Makhachev, who navigated
Oliveira’s guard from top position without issue before dropping
his foe in Round 2 and locking in the decisive arm-triangle choke
to finish the fight. Makhachev seemingly wanted to remind Oliveira
of that bout in his reaction to UFC 289 on social media.
“Congrats Charles,” Makhachev wrote on Twitter. “But there’s still
levels in this game.”
For his part, Oliveira doesn’t seem to believe he will need to
stray from his usual approach should a rematch come to
fruition.
“Nothing. I would do nothing [different], just simply be Charles,”
he said.
Meanwhile, White reiterated that while the rematch is something
he’s strongly considering, there are always a lot of moving parts
involved in the UFC matchmaking process.
“There’s a lot of things that go into consideration for the next
fight,” White said. “I’m sitting here talking to you about
[Oliveira] right now, I don’t even know what’s wrong with him. He’s
in medicals, I don’t know what he’s got planned over the summer.
The list goes on and on of things that factor in to how fights are
made. I’m just telling you right here, right now — it’s a fight I’d
like to see.”