Topuria recently teased he would be back in the cage<\/a> sometime between April and June to defend his belt against whoever wins the interim strap at T-Mobile Arena this weekend, but that\u2019s still up in the air as he deals with personal issues.<\/p>\nOliveira\u2019s head coach and manager Diego Lima told MMA Fighting that the ideal plan for the Brazilian star is to challenge the winner of Gaethje vs. Pimblett next if he gets past \u201cBMF\u201d champion Max Holloway on March 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fight that makes complete sense,\u201d Lima said. \u201cIf Charles wins this fight, he earns his shot at the belt because of the performance he just had, because he\u2019s been a champion before, because he competed for the belt again, and because of the win that, God willing, we\u2019re going to get over Max Holloway. And Pimblett against Gaethje will be for the [interim] belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lima said he likes Topuria, who beat \u201cdo Bronx\u201d to claim the 155-pound title in 2025, and would advise him to only fight again when his mind is focused solely on his athletic career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly when Topuria will return,\u201d Lima said. \u201cI like him, he\u2019s a great person and I really hope he solves his issues and comes back well because we know Topuria\u2019s potential and talent, and we know a fighter has to step in there with a clear head. I hope he truly resolves his problems and comes back when he\u2019s 100 percent so he can fight as the fighter he really is. I don\u2019t know if that moment is now. So I really believe that, depending on how Charles\u2019 fight goes and how Gaethje\u2019s fight goes, we\u2019ll have the timing for the belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
That timing, Lima said, could lead to Oliveira competing on the historic White House event in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s assume, best-case scenario, that Charles gets a win over Holloway and is injury-free, so he can come out \u2018fresh\u2019 for the next fight,\u201d Lima said. \u201cAnd the same thing happens with Gaethje and Pimblett. Then we might have the White House card. They want to make one of the biggest cards ever \u2014 actually, not want to, they\u2019re going to put the biggest card in history. Why not take advantage of the fact that these two fights will be all over social media and pair them up straight to the White House? Anything can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oliveira beat Gaethje in the past, a controversial week where Oliveira lost the belt on the scale before UFC 274 in Phoenix, and that\u2019s one of the reasons why Lima would rather have his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 face Pimblett instead.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Pimblett] must sell a lot. If he didn\u2019t, he wouldn\u2019t be fighting for the belt, so that\u2019s very important for us,\u201d Lima said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be a rematch [like Gaethje], it would be a new fight and he would have the belt, which would be incredible. We\u2019ll be ready for whoever wins, of course, but if we had to choose one, I think Pimblett would really be the name I\u2019d prefer.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he expects Pimblett to come out victorious at UFC 324, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly believe Pimblett [wins] because of the moment he\u2019s living,\u201d Lima said. \u201cI know people say, \u2018If you add up his last fights, [the opponents] only have losses.\u2019 I know a lot of people doubt him. I don\u2019t doubt him. I think he\u2019s a very good fighter, very talented. We know that the fact he\u2019s English is very important because we had a big name in the UFC like [Michael] Bisping. Countries matter, and Pimblett came in to fill that gap and he\u2019s doing it well. I think Gaethje has already had many opportunities. He\u2019s extremely talented and extremely dangerous. I believe Gaethje is more dangerous than Pimblett, but I think Pimblett can get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lima and Chute Boxe remain focused on Oliveira\u2019s next move, which is to beat Holloway in a rematch at UFC 326 in Las Vegas after a submission win over Mateusz Gamrot this past October at UFC Rio in Brazil, but the horizon seems ideal for their three-fight master plan for 2026. If all goes well, \u201cdo Bronx\u201d beats Holloway in March, reclaims the lightweight strap by June, and faces a \u201chuge name\u201d before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod willing, if we get the results we want, if we manage to bring home the BMF win and regain that [lightweight] belt,\u201d Lima said, \u201cI believe we could put both belts on the line in one fight, which would be something incredible, something amazing, and for sure it would be against a huge name. It makes total sense. But of course, today our goal 100 percent is the next fight. The BMF [belt] really is our focus right now, that\u2019s what we managed to secure after Charles\u2019 last fight. Our goal this year is to win both belts so he can put one on each shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett is the odds-on favorite to beat Justin Gaethje and claim the interim lightweight belt Saturday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211429,"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-435107","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\/435107","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=435107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}