Charles Oliveira does not seem to be worried about former featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. ‘El Matador’ packs a pretty strong striking and takedown power. Well, the former lightweight champion is still confident that he can knock Topuria out. He is confident that he can defeat Topuria since the latter comes from the featherweight category. On top of that Oliveira is training with the Fighting Nerds alumni Jean Silva. Why is this important? It’s because not only is the Brazilian a powerhouse of strikes, but he is similar in size to Topuria and can apparently ‘mimic’ his style of fighting.
“It’s a great fight. He’s a great fighter, but I don’t need to prove anything to anyone about who I am, what I’ve done, what I’ve done in the fight business. The fight came at a huge opportunity. I will knock out this guy. That’s for real,” Oliveira told Full Violence. On top of that, he also shared that he is not apprehensive of Topuria’s power since the Lightweight category is the ‘harder’ division.
Oliveira stated, “I don’t care what much people say here. In reality that’s the reality. I know he’s a guy who hits hard, but he’s talking about the lightweight category, the harder category. I fought against Justin Gaethje and everyone said he was the guy who hit harder and when I did, he went down. I believe in the power of fire in the hands that I have, so let’s wait. On the 28th, we’ll meet.”
Meanwhile, the Georgian Spaniard decided to debunk Oiveira’s confidence by uploading a subtle jibe with actions and not words. He recently showed his training which included punching the living daylights out of a reflex ball and captioned it, “The reflex ball…” That’s it, that was the post while his teammate was calmly eating ice cream sitting right below the reflex ball as Topuria was hitting the prop as hard as possible without missing a beat.
Topuria has decided to relinquish his 145 lbs title to pursue another belt in the lightweight division and he wanted to fight Islam Makahchev but the latter decided to shift to welterweight after a long reign in his division. Now the thing is ‘El Matador’ brings a lot of power to the cage since he stopped both Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski in his latest outings. But ‘Do Bronx’ too, has tested himself against some of the greatest lightweights. However, Topuria does have an underrated aspect that might spell trouble for Oliveira.
What hidden power does Topuria have to give Oliveira trouble?
Beneil Dariush was the one who recently gave intel on this hidden aspect of Topuria. He pointed out the biggest hurdle for Oliveira when he fights at UFC 317. It’s the ground game of the former featherweight champion. The 28-year-old is known for his outstanding striking skills, which he has displayed many times in the past.
However ‘Benny’ pointed out that Topuria has a splendid ground game which is as good as his striking. Let’s be real, Oliveira’s pressure is outstanding and it’s hard to escape that easily. For the unversed, the Brazilian fighter holds the record for the most submission wins in UFC history with 16, along with the most finishes in the organization, at 20.
But when it comes to ‘El Matador’, this might not work because he too has an amazing ground game. Dariush said, “I know Ilia’s Jiu-Jitsu is very good because when he fought Ryan Hall, I believe right? He fought him and he did well. Even if you know the fight was on the ground or he was throwing ground and pound, he did fine. The fact that he was able to stop Bryce’s takedowns and you know, eventually turn it around, and then when he was on top, he was able to just get into positions quickly. Bryce has good Jiu-Jitsu. Like, I don’t care what people say, the guy can grapple.”
Both stars have set their sights on the LW title. Oliveira, in fact, had the title before as well and wants it back again.
Meanwhile, Topuria wants a legacy of dual weight championship. So, who do you think will win this fight?
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