Charles Oliveira was handed the kind of hypothetical fighters usually swat away: if you could avenge one loss, and only one, which would it be? He didn’t need long. His answer was Islam Makhachev, according to a clip posted by the Instagram account 209arthur that Championship Rounds shared on X on Saturday.
The pick makes sense to anyone who remembers UFC 280. In 2022, with the 155-pound title vacant, Oliveira and Makhachev met for the belt, and Makhachev submitted him to become champion. For a fighter whose whole reputation was built on finishing people on the mat, getting tapped with a lightweight crown on the line is the kind of night that stays lodged somewhere behind the ribs. Of all the losses on Oliveira’s ledger, it’s the one that cost him the most, and it’s the one he’d apparently trade the others to revisit.
The timing is interesting, because Oliveira is far from the only Brazilian thinking about Makhachev this week. The same 209arthur account posted footage of Carlos Prates watching Oliveira train, vape in hand, a clip that made the rounds on X Friday night. Prates has a fight with Michael Morales ahead of him, and on Friday both men looked past each other toward the same target.
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“Don’t hide. After knocking Morales out, I’m gonna come back and retire Islam Makhachev from MMA,” Prates said, per Championship Rounds.
Morales had his own version: “I’m going to face Islam Makhachev. It’s coming back to Ecuador.”
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Makhachev, for his part, spent the week in a different kind of fight. After Usman Nurmagomedov attacked Merab Dvalishvili, Makhachev released a statement defending Nurmagomedov and the people with him, arguing that Dvalishvili had started things earlier by striking a Dagestani wrestler. “What happened today was started by Merab in his own homeland when he took it upon himself to hit a guest and insult his mother,” Makhachev said in the statement, as shared by Championship Rounds. The post drew a heated reaction online, including from commentator THE MMA GURU, who blasted the Dagestani side’s conduct on X.
So the man Oliveira wants back is currently being called out by two contenders, defending a teammate in public, and sitting at the center of the loudest feud in the sport. That’s a crowded inbox.
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My take: Oliveira’s answer is the most honest thing a fighter can say, and I’d rather hear it than another fighter insisting he never looks back. He knows exactly which night changed the arc of his career. The trouble is the line. Prates and Morales have a fight booked and a clear argument for being next, and Oliveira saying he wants Makhachev doesn’t move him ahead of the winner. What I keep coming back to is that training clip, Prates leaning on the wall with a vape while Oliveira drills, two men in the same room wanting the same opponent, one of them a step closer to getting him.
