Charles Oliveira is setting his sights on a big-money superfight for his next outing and he’s open to moving up to welterweight to fight Colby Covington or challenging Max Holloway for the BMF title. Oliveira has been one of the top contenders in both the featherweight and lightweight divisions of the UFC for several years now, but it appears as though he’s thinking more about his legacy as he gets further into his 30s. Oliveira went 12-5 as a featherweight after originally competing at lightweight, but it was his return to lightweight that cemented him as one of the best MMA fighters on the planet.
Oliveira went on an incredible 11 fight winning streak over 4 years that saw him become the UFC lightweight world champion, but that eventually came to an end when he was submitted by Islam Makhachev. He bounced back with an impressive win in his next fight so he was given an opportunity to challenge for the title again, with a title-eliminator against Arman Tsarukyan. It was a very close fight but Oliveira ended up losing a split decision, and the hopes of him getting a chance to regain his lightweight belt any time soon were dashed as a result.
It’s only been a month since that fight so Charles Oliveira is still waiting to determine who he will fight next, but Colby Covington and Max Holloway are both interesting ideas. Moving up to welterweight to face Covington would be a huge challenge for anyone, and Covington actually suggested the idea himself. Oliveira discussed the callout in a recent interview with UFC Brasil:
“I was surprised he said my name. Colby has this style of selling fights, talking a bunch to cr*p. I don’t know him personally so I can’t say, I only see it on TV and when he talks. He called me out, he said his jiu-jitsu is better, his wrestling is better, that he’s better than me in everything.”
Oliveira would obviously be the smaller man in the cage if he fights Covington but he’s aware of how big the fight would be, and he clearly thinks it might be worth facing that adversity:
“Could it be a big fight? It could be. It’s a fight that would make me money, going up a division and fighting stronger. But do I think about it? I don’t know. I’ll sit down and talk to the UFC and see what they think. I think Diego and ‘Macaco’ (his managers) will clash heads with them. But it could be. We can’t rule it out.”
This isn’t the first time that Oliveira has been interested in a superfight either, as he was previously campaigning for one against Conor McGregor. A fight against Colby Covington isn’t even the only superfight that Charles Oliveira is interested in right now, as he was asked about challenging Max Holloway for the BMF title too:
“Absolutely. Why not? It’s about legacy. Max Holloway has the belt and we fought before and everybody knows I had an injury during the fight. So, why not fight now? It would be good too. We talk about legacy, history, so winning this belt would be something gigantic too.”
It’s been a very long time since Oliveira and Holloway met in the cage of course, as it took place during Oliveira’s time as a featherweight. It was almost a decade ago now and Oliveira only lost due to an injury he suffered in the first round, so there’s no telling how a rematch would go. Holloway won the BMF title in a lightweight fight and Oliveira has been open to moving back down to featherweight in the past, so this could fight is definitely a realistic one.
The full interview with Charles Oliveira where he discusses the potential superfights against Colby Covington and Max Holloway was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of UFC Brasil: