Charles Oliveira wants to fight directly for the featherweight title

Published by

3 years ago

Charles Oliveira

Lightweight champion Charles Oliveira has fought multiple times at the featherweight division

Charles Oliveira won the vacant lightweight title at UFC 262 in stellar fashion. The Brazilian faced UFC newcomer Michael Chandler, defeating him via. knockout in the second round.

Oliveira thereby became the champion after spending 11 long years with the promotion. His lift-off came only when he decided to become a full-time lightweight in 2017.

Since his switch to the lightweight division, Oliveira has won 10 fights and just lost once. He is currently on a 9-fight win streak.

Charles Oliveira defeated Michael Chandler at UFC 262 to become the Lightweight champion (UFC)

Oliveira who had previously been a featherweight since 2012, has plans of striking gold there as well. In a recent interview with Combate, Oliveira claimed that he would hunt for featherweight gold if given a title shot directly.

Having struggled with weight cuts while in the featherweight division, the Brazilian sounded confident about making weight this time, due to the presence of a good nutritionist.

Oliveira was quoted as saying:

“If I have the opportunity to fight directly for the title, giving me time to do that, I would do well. Today I have a good nutritionist, a good team that will help me with this and make it happen. But only if it was straight for the title.”

There have been a few fighters who have directly landed a title shot in a new division

Oliveira directly getting a title shot in a new division, will not be the first time any fighter would have got such an opportunity.

Most notable among the fighters who got a direct shot at the title in a different division are Conor McGregor and Israel Adesanya. However, things panned out differently for the two.

Israel Adesanya lost to Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259 (Twitter)

While McGregor who was just making his lightweight debut against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 went on to win the title and eventually become the double champ. Adesanya had to take the first loss of his career when he moved up a division and challenged for the light-heavyweight title against Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259.

In this case, Oliveira will not be making his featherweight debut. He will only be returning to a division which he had been a part of, several years ago.