{"id":523225,"date":"2026-03-08T21:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523225\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:01:08","slug":"sean-shelbys-shoes-whats-next-for-charles-oliveira-after-ufc-326-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523225\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Shelby’s Shoes: What’s next for Charles Oliveira after UFC 326 win?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Oliveira<\/a> is the new BMF champion after UFC 326<\/a>, but it didn’t come the way many would’ve liked.<\/p>\n

Every BMF title fight up until Saturday had been filled with action. Oliveira (37-11 MMA, 25-11 UFC) took a different route, grounding Max Holloway<\/a> (27-9 MMA, 23-9 UFC) round after round and accumulating more than 20 minutes of control time to win a unanimous decision<\/a> and take home the belt.<\/p>\n

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Although the dominance and skill of Oliveira must be commended, it was not a great watch and not in tone with what has typically come out of these matchups. It was a huge win for the resume of “Do Bronx,” but in terms of future opportunities, it might have actually cost him.<\/p>\n

Given Oliveira’s track record of finishes, bonuses and excitement, the idea of him defending the BMF belt against Conor McGregor was captivating prior to the fight playing out. Now it leaves questions about whether it would just be a carbon copy of what happened at T-Mobile Area in Las Vegas, and surely no one is running to sign up for that.<\/p>\n

The alternative options aren’t much better, though. Oliveira could wait for three months and see what happens in the lightweight title unifier at UFC White House between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje, both of whom he has history with. Oliveira wants back to the undisputed belt, but there’s always a risk when sitting and waiting.<\/p>\n

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The wiser move for Oliveira would be to pursue a rematch with Arman Tsarukyan<\/a> (23-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC), who beat him a competitive split decision<\/a> at UFC 300 in April 2024. It doesn’t need to be for the BMF belt (which the promotion could arguably retire now, but that’s a different conversation), and instead be a certain title eliminator at 155 pounds.<\/p>\n

It’s clear UFC CEO Dana White is not a fan of Tsarukyan, so Oliveira ridding him from the title picture for the short term could make him undeniable in the eyes of the brass.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 326 matchmaker: Who’s next for BMF champ Charles Oliveira?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Oliveira is the new BMF champion after UFC 326, but it didn’t come the way many would’ve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[9578,49,48,15503,641,9577,1698,638,82,640,25831,1160],"class_list":["post-523225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bmf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-charles-oliveira","tag-fighting","tag-justin-gaethje","tag-max-holloway","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-white-house","tag-unanimous-decision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}