Oliveira flirted with UFC scrapheap, now he's the most unlikely champ
Charles Oliveira flirted with the UFC scrapheap but now he’s become its most unlikely champion… from four defeats in six to nine wins in a row, the lightweight from the favelas has completed his transformation into ‘the lion of lions’
- Charles Oliveira is the UFC lightweight champion after beating Michael Chandler
- The Brazilian is on a streak of nine victories, but it wasn’t always this easy for him
- Childhood illness, weight-cut struggles and big defeats have been tough hurdles
- Oliveira’s story is of persistence – he could change his life again in his next fight
Not Michael Chandler, not nobody. Charles Oliveira’s blazing charge to the lightweight title was impossible to predict. His is one of the UFC’s great stories of persistence.
As the final minute of round one slipped away on the Brazilian’s big night in Houston, he was going nowhere. Oliveira had escaped a dangerous guillotine choke before eating a stiff Chandler left-hand that grounded him.
‘At Macaco Gold Team, we have a saying. It can rain stones, but the stones are gonna come back,’ he said post-fight. In round two, the stones came back. Fast.
Charles Oliveira is the new lightweight UFC champion after knocking out Michael Chandler
The Brazilian faltered in round one before clipping the American with a left early in the second
A pinpoint left-hook, a brutal onslaught to bury the American, a lie-down on Joe Rogan’s desk and a bloody embrace with Dana White – the stunning comeback to complete the ultimate turnaround.
‘I’m proving to everybody I’m the lion of lions.’
Oliveira is on a red-hot streak. Nine victories in a row, with only his domination of Tony Ferguson going the distance. It wasn’t always like this.
The 31-year-old has been perilously close to the UFC scrapheap. Two separate, desperate streaks of four defeats in six fights left him at Dana White’s mercy, while four failures to make weight damaged his reputation.
Oliveira said after: ‘We have a saying. It can rain stones, but the stones are gonna come back’
The new champion lost to Anthony Pettis (left) among a rough spell between 2015 and 2017
Before facing Ricardo Lamas in 2016, the Brazilian rocked-up a staggering nine pounds overweight. He weighed-in at lightweight for a featherweight contest, and lost by submission.
Those were the dark times. Lamas choked-out Oliveira in November, three months after Anthony Pettis had done the same. Max Holloway’s arm was raised after a TKO victory the year before, too.
Oliveira’s nickname is ‘Do Bronx’. In Brazil, it’s slang for ‘of the favela’, and this fighter’s story is one of toughness and persistence. It was never going to end like this.
At seven-years-old, in Vicente de Carvalho, Guaruja, near Sao Paolo, the football obsessed youngster was diagnosed with abnormal heart murmurs and rheumatoid arthritis. He was expected to need a wheelchair but told his parents: ‘I would rather die’ than live without sport.
The 31-year-old has struggled with weight-cuts before, four times failing to make the limit
‘I was hospitalised for two years and doctors told my mom I couldn’t do sports anymore. It sucked because I couldn’t leave,’ Oliveira told MMA Fighting.
His mother Ozana added: ‘I slept on the hospital floor by his bed. I woke up at five in the morning to work and then went back to the hospital. Sometimes I went one month without going home, just going from the hospital to work and back.’
At 11-years-old he finally escaped. Two months later, against the advice of doctors who warned Oliveira could expect to sit in a wheelchair, he found MMA.
But even this chapter is flavoured with struggle and, sadly, tragedy. A man named Paulo, father to two children Oliveira befriended in the favela, first offered to take Charles and his brother Hermison to jiu-jitsu class. The siblings quickly showed serious promise – Hermison has also made it to the professional ranks.
Oliveira mauled Tony Ferguson in his last fight, later becoming the UFC’s best ever finisher
Paulo never did see what talents the siblings blossomed into cage-side, though. He was shot dead two years after the Oliveiras’ first day on the mats.
‘He had become part of our family,’ the new champion told ESPN. ‘I’m sure that from up there he sees the story of everything that has happened in my life, he always cheered and cheered.
‘He said that one day we would be champions and that we would give joy to my parents and to him.’
Present that prediction to a UFC expert in 2016, and they’ll tell you Paulo’s words were friendly encouragement. Nobody saw Saturday night in Houston coming.
Oliveira leapt out of the Octagon and went on a tear during his celebrations after the fight
It was under the crushing elbows of Paul Felder at UFC 218 that Oliveira hit the turning point. The American pounded fire into the skilful Brazilian that night in December 2017. He hasn’t lost since.
Clay Guida, Christos Giagos, Jim Miller, David Teymur, Nik Lentz, Jared Gordon, Kevin Lee, Tony Ferguson, Michael Chandler. ‘Do Bronx’ has left behind a trail of chaos on his blazing march to the top.
The stats are looking tasty for the 31-year-old. He’s now the greatest finisher in UFC history, overtaking Donald Cerrone with his 17th stoppage. He’s joint-eighth on the all-time victories list with 19. Only nine men have enjoyed longer win streaks longer than Oliveira’s.
Oliveira can now look forward to even bigger bouts, possible against the icon Conor McGregor
The celebrations were a joy to witness, as a stunned Chandler was left slumped on the cage, his chest heaving back and forth. Oliveira leapt out of the octagon and danced around like a boy, shrugging off security to find those deserving a bloody, sweaty embrace. Paolo, wheelchairs, defeat, frustration and doubt – it was all there.
Next, Oliveira could change his life all over again. The winner of Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier’s massive July showdown could well be in line to fight the new lightweight king.
Whether it’s McGregor or Poirier across the cage, it will rain stones. Past rivals, the UFC and fate have already rained plenty down on Charles Oliveira.
As Saturday night emphatically proved, those stones will always come back.
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