{"id":494950,"date":"2026-02-21T15:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494950\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T15:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:57:07","slug":"charles-oliveira-expects-ilia-topuria-to-knock-out-justin-gaethje-at-ufc-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494950\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Oliveira expects Ilia Topuria to knock out Justin Gaethje at UFC White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Charles Oliveira hopes to earn a shot at the UFC lightweight championship with a UFC 326 win over BMF titleholder Max Holloway on March 7 in Las Vegas, but he doesn\u2019t expect Ilia Topuria to still be the 155-pound kingpin by then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The UFC has yet to announce fights for the upcoming event on the White House lawn on June 14, and \u201cdo Bronx\u201d believe that card will end up featuring a lightweight unification bout between Topuria and interim champion Justin Gaethje.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI\u2019m one fight away [from a title shot], but right now I\u2019m focused on one thing only: Max Holloway\u201d Oliveira told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=y6LCnkwlCu8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Olhar da Luta<\/a>. \u201cBut if we\u2019re going to speculate like everyone else, I think the White House event will have Topuria and Gaethje. That\u2019s my take. And I think Topuria has every chance in the world to knock Gaethje out and keep the belt. Then I think by the end of the year he fights Makhachev for the [welterweight] title and vacates his belt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Makhachev <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/472180\/islam-makhachev-ilia-topuria-fight-definitely-wont-be-at-ufc-white-house\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently said<\/a> he didn\u2019t rule out being part of the White House event but said it would not be against Topuria. Oliveira, who remains focused on his UFC 326 main event bout, Makhachev vs. Topuria is too big for the UFC to pass if they both come out victorious from their upcoming fights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI think that Topuria vs. Islam fight happens, but not at the White House,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cI think it happens later in the year. It\u2019s definitely something Topuria wants, and Islam has been talking about it too, so it\u2019s a fight that will make a lot of money and a lot of people will want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Topuria won the featherweight belt by knocking out Alexander Volkanovski in 2024 and defended it once later that year, finishing Max Holloway, before moving up to lightweight in 2025 to stop Oliveira inside one round to claim the vacant title. With Topuria possibly out of the picture by the second half of 2026, Oliveira sees a clear path to regain the title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cSo if I win now [at UFC 326], I\u2019m definitely next in line for the title,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cThen they just have to see who will be the other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Oliveira hopes to earn a shot at the UFC lightweight championship with a UFC 326 win over&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-494950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494950","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=494950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}