A key lightweight fight, and something of a surprise for Charles Oliveira, has been added to UFC 300 this April.
The milestone event for the UFC comes on April 13, 2024 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Oliveira (34-9, 1NC) versus Arman Tsarukyan (21-3) now set for the card. UFC officials announced the booking late Sunday/early Monday morning, with Dana White first revealing the news on Instagram.
“Oliveira was supposed to fight the champ, Islam Makhachev, but Islam is still recovering from an injury, so Tsarukyan is coming off a vicious knockout of Beneil Dariush,” exclaimed White. “The winner will face Islam when he returns this summer.”
Charles Oliveira had been booked straight into a title fight this past fall, before an injury took him out of UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi. He’ll now have to get past Tsarukyan to hang onto the shot at reclaiming his old title.
Brazil’s “Do Bronx” won the UFC lightweight championship in May of 2021 when he defeated Michael Chandler for the belt vacated by the retired Khabib Nurmagomedov. He successfully defended his crown later that year against Dustin Poirier, but was stripped of his title after missing weight in his next outing, against Justin Gaethje. That was not without controversy, after claims that a backstage scale had been inadvertently tampered with made the rounds.
After winning the fight against Gaethje, Oliveira was booked against Makhachev for the then-vacant title, only to be submitted in the second round. He bounced back at UFC 289 in June this past year, finishing Beneil Dariush via TKO and emerging from the event as perhaps the biggest star on the card.
Tsarukyan is, as White noted, coming off a massive KO of Dariush care of a stunning knee, and has won his last three fights.
No main event has been announced for UFC 300, which now consists of the following reported match-ups:
- Charles Oliveira vs. Arman Tsarukyan
- Jiří Procházka vs. Aleksandar Rakić
- Calvin Kattar vs. Aljamain Sterling
- Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage
