UFC rising star Vinicius Oliveira will move to featherweight after suffering a lopsided main event loss to Mario Bautista.<\/p>\n
Dana White\u2019s Contender Series alumni Vinicius Oliveira\u2019s first UFC main event booking didn\u2019t go according to plan, as he lost to Mario Bautista at the Apex<\/a> in February. The defeat ended a four-fight unbeaten streak to begin his promotional tenure, after recent wins over Said Nurmagomedov and Kyler Phillips.<\/p>\n For the first time in Oliveira\u2019s UFC bantamweight tenure, he was challenged on the feet and dominated when the fight moved to the ground against Bautista. Bautista submitted Oliveira with a rear-naked choke in Round 2 as the round was seconds away from concluding.<\/p>\n Despite the setback, Oliveira remains one of the most exciting young talents on the UFC roster. His promotional debut ended in a vicious flying-knee knockout over Benardo Sopaj in March 2024.<\/p>\n But after a series of brutal weight cuts, including losing around 50 pounds<\/a> before the Bautista fight, Oliveira will make the move up a weight class next month.<\/p>\n Vinicius Oliveira\u2019s featherweight debut reportedly set for June 20th<\/p>\n As first reported by Setanta Sport<\/a>, Oliveira will face fellow knockout artist Giga Chikadze at the UFC\u2019s June 20th Fight Night event at the Apex. MMA Junkie<\/a> confirmed the news of the booking, but as of this writing, the UFC has yet to formally announce the matchup.<\/p>\n Chikadze will present a steep challenge for Oliveira\u2019s UFC featherweight debut. The 37-year-old has earned wins against the likes of Edson Barboza, Cub Swanson, and Alex Caceres in his featherweight tenure.<\/p>\n But Chikadze is looking to get back on track after three consecutive losses, including most recently against Kevin Vallejos in December. Chikadze\u2019s quick ascent to a potential featherweight title shot ended when he lost to Calvin Kattar in January 2022.<\/p>\n The June 20th UFC Fight Night event is headlined by a flyweight matchup between top contenders Manel Kape and Kyoji Horiguchi.<\/p>\n What is your early prediction for Vinicius Oliveira vs. Giga Chikadze? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC rising star Vinicius Oliveira will move to featherweight after suffering a lopsided main event loss to Mario…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,200540,785,85,787,201867],"class_list":["post-656341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-giga-chikadze","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-vinicius-oliveira"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656341","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=656341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}