Las Vegas — Charles Oliveira is aware of the criticism of his UFC 326 win over Max Holloway.
With Holloway’s “BMF” belt on the line, Oliveira grappled his way to victory, attempting numerous submissions of Holloway that, while none succeeded, kept him on his back most of the fight.
“He’s a great, tough fighter, someone I respect a lot, but I want to do what I do best, which is like we say in Brazil, make nothing out of people,” Oliveira (37-11, 1NC), the new BMF champ, told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight.
In response to the mixed reaction from fans following the fight, which included boos, Oliveira admitted that “I heard that, but these are two guys that just love the game. We’re very passionate about what’s going on. These are two great guys fighting each other. Maybe they didn’t want to see that kind of fight, but we wanted to be there. Most important thing, we got that belt, we’re taking it home.”
Despite hinting he might not do it, Oliveira did give Holloway a point-down moment at the end of the fight, giving “Blessed” a chance to steal the win back.
“I know that Max talked about he, he said ‘listen, you give the opportunity to the other guy when you’re winning the fight,'” noted Oliveira, who had Holloway tied up alongside the fence towards the end. “Then I heard it [the 10 second clapper], and he said ‘it’s 10 seconds to go, let’s go.’ Let’s make it happen then.”
Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz both took Oliveira to task for his performance at UFC 236, with Diaz referring to the main event as “Boring Mother F*ckers.” Oliveira confirmed that he has his sights on the lightweight title next, but is open to defending the BMF belt as well.
“I want the title, I want that lightweight belt. I’ve said this all along, let’s wait for the fight at the White House, that’s what I want to do,” stated Oliveira. In response to McGregor, who questioned the decision to force fighters to cut to lightweight for the BMF title, he added “you want to put him 170, you want to put him up there? I don’t care. If you want to put him at middleweight, do it. It doesn’t matter.”
“If you want, make it a grand prix. Just put two fights the same day and see what happens.”
The odd man out at lightweight right now is Arman Tsarukyan, which might benefit Oliveira in terms of his title aspirations. Tsarukyan pulled out of a title fight on short notice last year, and has become viewed as a liability after getting into altercations with a fan, an opposing wrestling under the Real American Freestyle banner, and fellow lightweight Dan Hooker.
“People sell fights differently. You’ve got to sell fights in a different way. You can’t behave in certain ways. Some people just do stuff, they go up in the octagon, and they just do different things inside and outside the octagon as well that just puts them in different positions,” Oliveira told Cageside Press. “Me, I do what needs to be done. I got this fight, I fought Max, I did to him something that other people were not able to do. Again, other people pick up the microphone and say stupid stuff. So you’ve got to do the things you need to do to get those fights correctly.”
He also revealed he was willing to be a backup for the Freedom 250 card at the White House, where lightweight champ Ilia Topuria faces Justin Gaethje.
“For sure, I can be a backup. Let’s make some money.”
Watch the full UFC 326 post-fight press conference with Charles Oliveira above.
