After storming into a frenzied Brazilian crowd to celebrate yet another victory in Rio de Janeiro, Charles Oliveira was clear and direct about what he wants next.
“Hey, Hunter (Campbell),” Oliveira said through an interpreter during his octagon interview with Michael Bisping, “Charles Oliveira and Max Holloway, BMF, let’s make that happen.”
It was quite the callout from Oliveira following a second-round submission win over Mateusz Gamrot in the UFC Fight Night 261 main event at Farmasi Arena. Not only did Oliveira move to 7-0 all time in Brazil as a UFC fighter, he extended his UFC records for most stoppage wins (21) and most submissions (17).
With the impressive performance and callout of Holloway out of the way, the only question now is whether or not the reigning BMF champion is interested. We got an answer immediately following Oliveira’s win.
“Why wouldn’t I be interested in that?” Holloway said during a live stream on his Kick channel.
Just three months ago, Holloway defended his BMF belt with a lopsided win over Dustin Poirier in their trilogy. In order to make a fight with Oliveira happen seemingly would depend on timing as Holloway is recovering from a hand injury suffered in the Poirier fight that required surgery.
According to Holloway, there’s “no shot” he could fight before January. When the idea was floated to him about possibly fighting Oliveira on the UFC White House card next June, Holloway wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of sitting out almost a full year between fights. “Sitting out a year would be f*cking terrible,” he said.
Holloway continued, “BMF at the White House, brother? The White House card is just so far away, you know what I mean? It’s like a year, boys. Let that sink in: a year, boys. I don’t know if I want to wait that long. We’ll see what happens. Never say never.”
A fight between Holloway and Oliveira would be a rematch of a 2015 encounter that ended with Holloway winning by injury TKO after Oliveira suffered an apparent neck injury that was later described as a micro-tear in his esophagus. Holloway is excited about the prospect of running things back, saying the fight “would be a fun one.”
“We’ve been talking about this fight,” Holloway said. “Me and him have a history. He’s blaming (that loss) on some type of injury. I guess we get to figure it out now.”
