Charles Oliveira could be in for a bad night against Ilia Topuria at UFC 317.
This week, UFC Lightweight Champion Islam Makhachev relinquished his belt in pursuit of welterweight gold against champion Jack Della Maddalena.
As a result, former champs Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira are left to fight for the vacant title in the newly-announced UFC 317 main event on June 28th in Las Vegas.
Topuria looks to improve to 17-0 after making the jump from the featherweight division, while Oliveira attempts to reclaim the title he was stripped of back in 2022.
The next lightweight title fight is one of the most intriguing matchups we’ve seen in recent memory; Topuria is known for knocking his opponents out cold, and Oliveira for tapping them out by submission.
In his last two fights, Topuria knocked out UFC titleholders Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, leaving a former champion concerned about Oliveira’s chin.
- READ MORE: Ilia Topuria explains key advantage he holds over Charles Oliveira ahead of UFC 317 title fight
Aljamain Sterling says Charles Oliveira gets dropped almost every fight
Oliveira might be the UFC’s greatest submission artist but the Brazilian’s ability to take a punch has been questioned at times.
‘Do Bronx’ has been dropped in four of his last seven fights and has lost by TKO four times in his career. Oliveira was also hurt by Michael Chandler’s punches in his most recent appearance at UFC 309 in November.
Aljamain Sterling, one of the greatest bantamweights of all time, likes Topuria’s chances of cracking Oliveira’s chin at UFC 317.
“Oliveira gets dropped every fight,” Sterling said on The Weekly Scraps.
“Just about every fight… With that said, we know Ilia Topuria can crack. We’ve seen him get dropped before by Jai Herbert. Came back [to KO him]. That was the first time he fought at 155.
“[Topuria] says he feels better at 155. His power is way different at 155. We know he could already crack at 45. [How] is that power gonna translate into at 155?
“If he could touch Charles the way he hits everybody else, I think it’s a bad night [for Oliveira]… Ilia is a two-division champion.”
Aljamain Sterling favors Ilia Topuria: ‘Who’s stopping this guy?’
Besides Topuria’s power, Sterling says Oliveira’s grappling also leaves a ‘big question mark’ on how the title fight plays out.
Sterling stated that no one has forced the grappling with Topuria since Bryce Mitchell in 2022, which was Topuria’s latest submission win.
Of course, Mitchell is no Charles Oliveira, who has the most submission wins in UFC history at 16.
“This is a hard one,” Sterling said when picking a winner in Topuria vs. Oliveira.
“I like Ilia in this one.
“It’s hard to count out Do Bronx. Do Bronx is, I still think, “he’s him”. But then I said that about Max [Holloway]. I said that about Volk. I’m not saying that those guys were gonna win against Ilia, but you say that those guys are still ‘them’, and then Ilia goes out and does that to them…
“You’re like, f—. Who’s stopping this guy?” Sterling said of Topuria.
While he’s known more for his boxing now, Topuria started with seven straight submission wins at the beginning of his career and has a background in Greco-Roman wrestling