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Former UFC lightweight champion and current no. 2 ranked Charles Oliveira (36-11) already has his next fight lined up, just under two months removed from his latest appearance where he’s expected to face no. 3 ranked former UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway (27-8) for the BMF title in the main event of UFC 326.
UFC 326 is to go down on March 7, 2026, live from the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.
This fight is a rematch of their 2015 encounter down at 145 lbs that saw Holloway the victor via TKO (injury) where Oliveira tore his esophagus just 99 seconds into the contest.
That came in the middle of Holloway’s legendary 14-fight featherweight win streak, where he went on to defeat the likes of Jeremy Stephens (UD) and Ricardo Lamas (UD) before stopping former WEC & UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis (TKO) for the interim title.
Holloway then unified the titles against Jose Aldo (TKO) before defending it against Aldo in their rematch (TKO), Brian Ortega (TKO), and former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar (UD).
Holloway has since moved up to 155 lbs where he captured the BMF title against Justin Gaethje (KO) before defending it against Dustin Poirier in their trilogy (UD), someone he was 0-2 against going in.
After capturing the most submission victories in UFC featherweight history Oliveira moved back up to 155 lbs himself, going on an 11-fight win streak from 2018 to 2022 where he defeated the likes of Clay Guida (guillotine choke), Christos Giagos (rear naked choke), Jim Miller (rear naked choke) in their rematch, David Teymur (anaconda choke), Nik Lentz (TKO) in their trilogy, Jared Gordon (KO), Kevin Lee (guillotine choke), and former interim champion Tony Ferguson (UD).
This led up to his vacant title shot against former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler, who he stopped (TKO) in round two to become the UFC lightweight champion. Oliveira followed this up with defenses over former interim champions Dustin Poirier (rear naked choke) and Justin Gaethje (rear naked choke) before losing the title in 2022 to Islam Makhachev (arm-triangle choke).
Since then Oliveira has gone 3-2 with wins over Beneil Dariush (TKO), Michael Chandler in their rematch (UD), and Mateusz Gamrot (neck crank), the defeats coming to no. 1 ranked Arman Tsarukyan in a razor thin decision he could’ve easily gotten the nod in, and then Ilia Topuria (KO) in another vacant title fight back in June.
The Gamrot win was exceptionally impressive.
This performance not only extended Oliveira’s records for the most finishes and submission victories in UFC history but also showed him become the first man to ever stop the 25-3 former KSW two-division champion. Furthermore, two of Gamrot’s defeats going in were split decisions nearly everyone scored for him; he could’ve easily been 27-1 going into that fight and Oliveira made it look easy.
This is the fight many of us were hoping would come next for these two, who walks away from UFC 326 with the BMF championship?
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