There was a time when Charles Oliveira was consistently calling out Conor McGregor with hopes that he could face off against the former two-division champion in the UFC.<\/p>\n
As he prepares to clash with Max Holloway in the UFC 326 main event on Saturday with the symbolic \u201cBMF\u201d title on the line, the Brazilian admits his real goal is getting back to the undisputed championship and a potential rematch against Ilia Topuria. That said, Oliveira isn\u2019t opposed to the McGregor fight \u2014 if the Irish superstar actually returns to action as he\u2019s teased lately \u2014 but that matchup is really more about a paycheck than adding anything to his legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing truthful, I\u2019ve always been [honest about this] and I will again, to fight Conor it would be for the money,\u201d Oliveira said during UFC 326 media day. \u201cThat\u2019s it. Simply that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While money would be the driving force behind a McGregor fight, Oliveira definitely has more riding on his fight on Saturday against Holloway.<\/p>\n
Technically the fight serves as a rematch after they first met back in 2015 but that night ended in disappointing fashion after Oliveira suffered a freak injury that ended his night less than two minutes into the opening round.<\/p>\n
Many fighters don\u2019t view losses due to injury as legitimate but Oliveira won\u2019t take that win away from Holloway. He just wants his chance to earn some revenge at UFC 326.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first fight between us, let\u2019s kill that one. That\u2019s it. He won that fight,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cThat\u2019s it. Two great fighters, two legends, two guys that put on a show. We\u2019re going to put on a great show on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to the \u201cBMF\u201d title, Oliveira takes that seriously even if the belt wasn\u2019t supposed to exist beyond the night it was created for a fight between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz.<\/p>\n
UFC CEO Dana White always downplayed introducing the \u201cBMF\u201d belt as an actual championship for the promotion but Holloway added some gravitas to the title after knocking out Justin Gaethje to win the belt and then defending it this past July in a slugfest against Dustin Poirier.<\/p>\n
For his part, Oliveira believes every fighter who has ever touched the \u201cBMF\u201d belt has added something to the legacy of the belt so it definitely means something to him to win it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure this is a title,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cThis is a belt. The opportunity to take it down to Brazil, something that has never been done before by a Brazilian athlete. When I talk about legacy and getting things, the records and everything else, that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think each and every fighter that actually has held it has given its importance. They\u2019ve had their ways and now Max has found a way to give it even more importance to a belt like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If he\u2019s successful on Saturday, Oliveira could potentially pursue that McGregor fight for a hefty payday but he actually prefers returning home with hopes that the UFC could finally stage a card at a stadium in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Oliveira believes it\u2019s long past time the UFC put on a show like that but adding his star power alongside somebody such as Alex Pereira could produce a massive, sold out crowd in Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said this before and I said it after my last fight \u2014 Brazil deserves it,\u201d Oliveira said. \u201cThis is the time for us to do it. This is the time to make it happen. To make it in a stadium. Brazil deserves that. The Brazilian people deserve that. A stadium, closed, put an octagon in the middle and we\u2019re going to do our job, which is to fill that stadium up to capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, Dana [White], Hunter [Campbell], Sean [Shelby], everybody get it together. The Brazilian people deserve this and we\u2019re going to make it beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time when Charles Oliveira was consistently calling out Conor McGregor with hopes that he could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519168,"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-519167","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\/519167","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=519167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}