Charles Oliveira's legend keeps growing — and a date with Max Holloway sounds too good to pass up

Ed Mulholland via Getty Images

Ordinarily, when a fighter gets knocked out the way Charles Oliveira did in late June against Ilia Topuria, the chances of seeing them fight again within the next six months are slim. Yet we should know by now that there’s nothing ordinary about Charlie Olives.

After all, his name is “Do Bronx,” not “Don’t Bronx.” He was never going to stand by for the UFC’s visit to Rio de Janeiro. Dude has the whitest teeth in the southern hemisphere. We know this because he’s always smiling!

Against the better concerns of protocolists, Oliveira headlined Saturday night’s UFC Rio card for the people of Brazil just three-and-a-half months after the Topuria Incident. He was ready to take on Rafael Fiziev, the slobber-knocking Azerbaijani brawler who is anxious to get back into the top five, but Fiziev couldn’t make the appointment. So Fiziev became Mateusz Gamrot, a Polish fighter who is himself a perennial contender.

From Oliveira’s perspective, it didn’t matter who the UFC shipped in.

From Gamrot’s, well — when Mateusz got the call to step in and fight Oliveira in September, he dropped his phone and rubbed his palms together, the way a competitive eater does when confronting a 64-ounce steak. The good fortune of fighting a legend on his home turf, to take some juice from one of the most beloved figures going, it was all too much. It’s one thing to beat Ludovit Klein at the UFC APEX (as Gamrot did in May), but it’s quite another to notch a name like Oliveira to the deafening chants of “uh, vai morrer!”

You know how this goes.

Man dances into minefield and gets his leg blown off.

Gamrot sprinted to the Octagon as if he couldn’t wait a second longer to get his hands on the prize, while Oliveira strode to the cage in his typical throes of gratitude. Gamrot paced back and forth as he waited, Oliveira — a slight underdog, given the circumstances — pointed to the sky. Gamrot wanted to make a bigger name for himself, to fortify his credentials as a contender, but instead he just became a number on a growing list of such deluded hopefuls.

As in, he was Oliveira’s 17th submission in the UFC. He was Oliveira’s 21st end-of-the-night bonus. He became Oliveira’s 24th overall conquest, the only number that isn't a UFC record. These figures boggle the mind quite literally when you become one of them, as Gamrot did.

And really, it wasn’t all that close of a fight.

Gamrot took Oliveira down in the first round and tried to play top game. Against ordinary fighters, he’d have been fine with this approach, as he’s highly trained at submission grappling and as they stated on the broadcast, you don’t just forget who you are once you get in the cage no matter who you’re facing. Besides, hadn’t Topuria tenderized Oliveira with blows from the crucifix position on the ground? The key was not to over-respect Oliveira, who thrives on any such trepidation.

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But as mentioned, Oliveira isn’t an ordinary fighter. It wasn’t long before the stomping sounds made the whole place rattle as Oliveira reversed the position and took Gamrot’s back. In fact, he had it for the bulk of the first round, threatening with limbs that kept wrapping around his neck looking for the quick end. It was a high-class grappling match for good pockets, but once Oliveira settled in it all just looked like a bad idea for Gamrot.

Taking the fight. The takedown. Believing he could duplicate what Topuria did. All of it.

The idea of the fight returning to the feet to start the second round was but a temporary reprieve. It wasn’t long before Oliveira was on Gamrot’s back again, this time sliding the left hand under the chin and getting the hooks in and torquing his face toward the ground, as thousands of Cariocas stood on their feet in anticipation of the tap.

Then it came. Oliveira had done it again. Before the ink on all the eulogies being written about him had a chance to dry, Oliveira reminded everyone that he isn’t done yet. It was his 18th win in Brazil. The fact that he has never lost there in a 17-year career speaks for itself. He has become a time-honored tradition. A thing to be depended on.

Açaí. Capoeira. Corinthians. Charles Oliveira.

It’s never any less emotional for Oliveira, either. Gamrot was coming for a piece of his legacy, but the art of Charles is in defiance. Every time he “does it again” you get the sense that the favelas which he grew up will never allow him to take any of it for granted. They are always looming over him, which means every fight means the world. He climbed the fence, just as his countryman Jose Aldo did after beating Chad Mendes at UFC 142 in 2012, and disappeared into mob of celebrating fans.

The UFC’s Reed Harris, who wrangled Aldo all those years ago from those clutches, was tasked with fishing him back out of there. To bring him to the microphone for the post-fight interview.

In all the years, Oliveira never became an adept English speaker, but there were a couple of words that could be made out just fine with the North American audience. They were: Max Holloway. That’s who he wants next, the guy who beat him back in 2019 — the current BMF titleholder, and modern-day cult icon.

Who can deny Charles Oliveira such a request? After all, when people look at the record books many years from now, that’s what they’ll see — the baddest mother***er of his time.