Brazilian Oliveira made history yesterday as the first UFC champion ever to lose weight, weighing in at 200 grams too heavy.
He was then severely punished: On the one hand, he was forced to pay large parts of his match fee to his opponent Justin Gaethje, and on the other hand, Gaethje was the only one who had the chance to win the UFC belt in lightweight (70.3 kilos) last night.
The title match itself was short, but very eventful.
Both floored each other, but it was a knock down from Oliveira that caused the brass to throw itself over Gaethje on the ground.
From there, he attacked again and again before succeeding with a rear-naked choke, a strangulation from the opponent's back, and the American gave up 3.22 into round one.
Oliveira once again showed who is the world's best lightweight, but was not rewarded with a championship belt afterwards.
The victory was his eleventh straight in the UFC.
- This was a message to the whole weight class, I am a problem for everyone!
I'm the champion and this is my title.
The belt should be here, he said afterwards.
Oliveira (right) dots Gaethje.
Photo: TT
"Do you dare, McGregor?"
UFC president Dana White has promised Oliveira a title match next time, but he does
not
go into it as champion, which above all means a big financial loss for the brass.
When asked who he wants to meet next, he replied:
- I do not care, put anyone in front of me.
Conor McGregor, will you dare or will you run away?
Charles Oliveira now has 21 wins in the UFC, just two from the record of 23 shared by Andrei Arlovsky and Jim Miller.
In total, he has collected 33 victories in 41 professional matches in MMA.
21 of them have come via submission.
Michael Chandler celebrates with a volt.
Photo: TT
Chandler's spectacular knock
Earlier in the evening, in the same weight class, American Michael Chandler won by spectacular knockout 17 seconds into the second round against Tony Ferguson.
After a tough round one where Chandler was floored, he started round two with a front kick that hit cleanly on Ferguson's chin.
"One of the most incredible knockouts in UFC history.
Wow ", writes Yahoo journalist Kevin Iole on Twitter.
"Shocking, scary, brutal and insane knockout of Chandler," tweeted famous MMA journalist Ariel Helwani.
FROM YESTERDAY: Historical miss: "Damn laughable"
Javascript is disabled
Javascript must be turned on to play video
Read more about browser support
The browser is not supported
SVT does not support playback in your browser.
We therefore recommend that you switch to a different browser.
Read more about browser support
UFC star Charles Oliveira lost weight and was stripped of his championship belt.
Photo: TT