Charles Oliveira surprised Arman Tsarukyan with his UFC 326 win.
Oliveira (37-11 MMA, 25-11 UFC) proved to be too much for Max Holloway (27-9 MMA, 23-9 UFC) on the ground when he took him down five times and controlled him for over 20 minutes in a lopsided decision win to claim the BMF belt this past Saturday.
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Tsarukyan (23-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC), who edged out Oliveira in UFC 300, was impressed with the former UFC lightweight champion.
“He did really well. I didn’t expect such a great performance from him,” Tsarukyan said in a translated interview Red Corner MMA. “I thought that he would win, but not in such a dominant manner. I thought it would be a back-and-forth fight, and that he would struggle to take (Holloway) down, but he was taking Max down like he was a schoolboy.”
Although dominant, Oliveira’s performance left many fans restless – especially with the BMF title on the line.
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“I understand them,” Tsarukyan said. “We were sitting in the front row with Nina and we were bored. We were looking for the coolest fans around who would be acting excited, but it was hard because almost the whole fight went on the ground, even without ground-and-pound. Charles was just in top position all the time and didn’t even hit Max with any strikes. It would have been much more exciting if he showed any real action, but he was just keeping it on the ground and it was boring.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Arman Tsarukyan didn’t expect Charles Oliveira to dominate at UFC 326