RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 Charles Oliveira is siding with fellow Brazilian star Alex Pereira on a potential superfight with Jon Jones in 2026 after \u201cPoatan\u201d voiced his interest in facing him on the UFC White House card.<\/p>\n
Pereira mentioned that plan after knocking out Magomed Ankalaev to regain the light heavyweight championship this past weekend in Las Vegas. Jones, who like Pereira was UFC champion in two divisions, retired from the sport seven months after beating Stipe Miocic in November 2024, but then announced his intention to compete again after UFC revealed the White House plans, which President Donald Trump said is set for June 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo Bronx\u201d headlines UFC Rio this weekend against Mateusz Gamrot and was asked by MMA Fighting during the Wednesday media day about the potential clash.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking about Jon Jones is a bit complicated because I admire him a lot,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cWhen I fought the first time, Jon Jones was there. When I was the breakthrough fighter, Jon Jones was there. I was No. 2, he was No. 1. I admire him a lot. He was there when I fought Michael Chandler the second time. I admire him a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones was never truly beaten in MMA, the sole defeat in 30 bouts being a disqualification against Matt Hamill, but Oliveira sees Pereira\u2019s knockout power as a real threat to any fighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely going to be a fight that I will sit down and cheer for Brazil, for \u2018Poatan,\u2019\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll be apprehensive watching it because [Jones] is great. But I think that whoever stands in front of Poatan, regardless of being someone who only takes people down, if [Pereira] lands a hand, he\u2019s getting knocked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pereira has now beaten every single fighter he\u2019s faced inside the UFC cage, going 10-2 with knockouts over the likes of Ankalaev, Israel Adesanya, Jiri Prochazka, Khalil Rountree Jr. and Jamahal Hill. Other Brazilians had longer reigns as champions, like Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo, but some look at Pereira\u2019s two-division run as the reason why he\u2019s already the greatest Brazilian to ever fight for the promotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not I\u2019m staying on the fence,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cThose who follow me know I\u2019ve always said this. I think it\u2019s all phases and moments. Anderson Silva had his time. Everybody watched him dance his way inside the cage. Aldo had his time. I think everybody had their moment, their phase, and deserve respect. If Anderson comes back to fighting today we would have to sit down and applaud him regardless of the result because they all had their phases and moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single one of them helped the sport evolve more and open doors. Before them there were others back then, back in PRIDE days and other shows, opening doors so we could walk. The same way we\u2019re doing now so other athletes can walk on as well. It\u2019s all phases. They\u2019re all gigantic. Poatan is at the top today, a gigantic man, and can definitely win the third belt [at heavyweight].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 Charles Oliveira is siding with fellow Brazilian star Alex Pereira on a potential superfight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-203333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}