Charles Oliveira fell victim to a brutal weight cut which saw him lose his UFC lightweight title before even getting to throw a punch against Justin Gaethje.
In 2021, Charles Oliveira‘s underdog story reached its peak when he became the UFC lightweight champion after knocking out Michael Chandler at UFC 262.
‘Do Bronx’ then went on to defend his title against Dustin Poirier in another come from behind victory, once again showcasing his championship heart.
The fan favorite Brazilian was then matched up with Justin Gaethje at UFC 274 on May 7 2022, attempting to make the second defense of his lightweight title.
Charles Oliveira lost UFC title after ‘scale gate’
Just a day out from their fight in Arizona, Oliveira and ‘The Highlight’ took to the scale to weigh in for their fight, which resulted in one of the biggest controversies of Oliveira’s career.
‘Do Bronx’ stepped on the scale and weighed in at 155.5lbs, half a pound over the championship limit. As a result of his narrow weight miss, Oliveira was stripped of his title and at UFC 274, only Gaethje was eligible to win the title.
The situation was dubbed ‘scale gate’ as several other fighters who competed on the card complained about weight misses, claiming that they were on weight when testing their weight on the ‘practice scales’ the night before their fights.
Despite the wide complaints, there was nothing the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs of the UFC, Marc Ratner could do and they went ahead with stripping Oliveira of the title.
After such a controversial build-up to the fight, ‘Do Bronx’ once again came into the UFC Octagon with a chip on his shoulder, and went on to put on a masterful performance once again, finishing Gaethje in the first round.
“Hey, there’s something missing here, the champion has a name and it’s Charles Oliveira from the Bronx,” Oliveira said after the fight.
Charles Oliveira’s history of weight misses
‘Do Bronx’ first missed weight in 2012, prior to his featherweight fight against Cub Swanson, resulting in the fight being changed to catchweight.
Just two years later, Oliveira was removed from his scheduled fight against Nick Lentz after missing weight and subsequently falling ill.
Later that year, he was matched up against Jeremy Stephens and once again missed the 146lb featherweight limit.
Then in 2015, Oliveira weighed in at 150.5lbs for his featherweight fight against Myles Jury, before missing weight by the biggest margin of his career just a year later against Ricardo Lamas.