An ex-UFC titleholder doesn’t believe Saturday night ends well for Charles Oliveira.
Oliveira will be facing Ilia Topuria for the vacant UFC Lightweight Championship. The title fight will headline UFC 317 on Saturday in Las Vegas. Once the fight begins, Islam Makhachev will officially relinquish the 155-pound gold.
Ahead of fight night, one former champion admits he doesn’t find a path to victory for “do Bronx.”
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Robert Whittaker Doesn’t Like Charles Oliveira’s Chances
During a new edition of the “MMArcade Podcast,” Robert Whittaker said that for as good as Charles Oliveira is, he doesn’t believe “do Bronx” will be able to withstand the barrage that Ilia Topuria will put forth (via MMAJunkie).
“Ilia is a weapon,” Whittaker said. “What he did to (Alexander Volkanovski) and what he did to Max (Holloway), two of the best featherweights – Volk being the best featherweight to have ever done it – he starched two legends of the sport. That is unreal. Ilia’s skill set is ridiculous. Charles is phenomenal, as well. He’s super dangerous off his back. Ilia has the grappling to do it. Charles standing, very textbook – but gets hit a lot. Ilia loves scrapping, loves moving on the inside, loves slipping punches to land punches. He’s so good at dirty boxing. I just don’t see where Charles wins this fight against Ilia.”
Topuria is moving up from the featherweight division, which is familiar territory for Oliveira. There was a time when “do Bronx” competed at 145 pounds before having the biggest run of his pro MMA career at lightweight. Some are wondering if the change in weight class will have any negative impact on Topuria, but Whittaker doesn’t believe that will be the case.
BJPenn.com will be providing live coverage of UFC 317 this weekend.
