A few weeks removed from his devastating knockout loss at UFC 317, Charles Oliveira has revealed to his fans when he is hoping to return to the Octagon.
On June 28 at UFC 317, Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira clashed in the main event for the vacant lightweight title after Islam Makhachev left the division.
Topuria went on to separate Oliveira from consciousness in the very first round, becoming the new champion and continuing his legendary run in the promotion.
After his loss, ‘Do Bronx’ was slammed by Paddy Pimblett who called him an ‘amateur’ and questioned his game plan for the fight.
Charles Oliveira didn’t know what had happened at UFC 317
After suffering such a huge KO, Oliveira has been advised to take off six months to fully recover, however, the Brazilian has a different idea.
Talking about his loss, Oliveira admitted that when he woke up in the middle of the Octagon, he didn’t know what had happened as he has never been knocked out.
“No (I didn’t understand what had happened), I asked them several times what happened, how I was, what night it was,” Oliveira began to explain in an interview with Ag Fight.
“It made me upset, it made me sad, it hurt because of the way it happened. I’ve never been knocked out, I’ve been knocked down, I was TKO’d but I’ve never been knocked out. I didn’t know what happened, I didn’t know what I was doing,” he continued.
Oliveira shares return timeline and opponent he’s targeting next
Despite having suffered such a brutal loss, the Brazilian fan favourite has revealed that he would like to return to action before the end of the year and is targeting a potential fight against Max Holloway.
At UFC 318, Holloway is set to defend his BMF title against Dustin Poirier, and despite the result of that fight, a rematch against ‘Do Bronx’ could make sense for him next.
“(Max Holloway) will fight in July, I fought in June. I think November would be the time… It would be a great fight. He said he would fight too, so why not?” Oliveira said.
Despite that, ‘Blessed’ is still targeting a potential rematch against the newly crowned lightweight champion and so Oliveira may not be his top choice.