Vinicius
Oliveira is aiming high after a spectacular
Ultimate Fighting Championship debut on Saturday.
Advertisement
After multiple opponent changes, Oliveira took on fellow debutant
Bernardo
Sopai on the preliminary card at
UFC Fight Night 238. After dropping the first round on the
scorecards, Oliveira came from behind to score a spectacular flying
knee knockout in the final frame.
“Lok Dog” subsequently called out bantamweight contender Umar
Nurmagomedov, who also fought on the same card. Nurmagomedov
survived an early knockdown and went on to score a lopsided
unanimous decision win over Bekzat
Almakhan on the main card.
Oliveira was watching Nurmagomedov’s fight during a post-fight
media scrum and labeled the Dagestani standout one dimensional.
While the Brazilian initially struggled with grappling during his
UFC debut, he plans on sharpening his takedown defense to tackle
Nurmagomedov’s wrestling skillset.
“I would like to fight Umar Nurmagomedov,” Oliveira said during a
post-fight media scrum (video via MMAjunkie.com). “I think [fighting him] now is the
right moment. I was watching this [Umar’s] fight, I keep watching
these fights to take all mistakes, all strategies he like to do
inside the cage. I’m sure if I fight against Umar Nurmagomedov
it’ll be an easy fight to me because he just have wrestling. And he
[Sopai] was able to put me on the ground, but I’m training so hard
my [takedown] defense.
“I’m almost sure that I’m able to defeat this guy in first round.
Because my mistake was today only my takedown defense. But now I go
back to the gym and I train so hard so it don’t happen again.”