It’s been a wild week for UFC veteran Charles ‘Do Bronx’ Oliveira. Oliveira had been with the promotion for close to a decade – and he’s still not in their good graces.
During the official weigh in session for UFC 274, Charles Oliveira missed weight by half a pound. The scale showed 155.5 pounds and the Brazilian athlete was forced to vacate his belt right before the bout started.
This is especially dubious considering the Arizona set event didn’t even follow Arizona state athletic commission guidelines during the weigh ins.
Canadian lawyer and combatsportslaw founder explained:
Since
1. AZ ignored their own statute for the weigh in
2. UFC can do whatever they want with their in house promotional titleUFC should give Charles O the belt as soon as they leave AZ
Either that or Charles should lawyer up and get AC to explain themselves to a judge
— Erik Magraken (@erikmagraken) May 8, 2022
UFC president was on hand during the press conference following UFC 274 and he was made to answer about a quote of his that was recently unearthed.
Back in 2018 when Khabib Nurmagomedov had a lightweight title bout against Al Iaquinta, UFC president Dana White was quoted saying:
“The title is on the line,” White said during a press conference (h/t MMAJunkie)assembled for the new UFC 223 headliners. “As far as the commission goes, Khabib is the one that’s eligible for the title. But obviously, if ‘Ragin’ Al wins this fight, he’s the champ.”
Dana then added:
“If you beat the man, you are the man.”
Naturally Dana White weaseled out of the question.
Question: … It’s your belt so if you wanna give it to him you can give it to him – when it was Al Iaquinta who was gonna fight for it and you’re like ‘Yeah, we don’t care, if you beats the guy we’ll give him the belt’
Dana White : ‘Listen, he’s the guy. He’s the guy. He didn’t make weight. We have rules. He didn’t make the weight – he doesn’t , he doesn’t… the belt is vacant.’
‘I think… I’m sure in the minds of the media and fight fans Oliveira is the champion. But, technically he’s the number 1 contender’
Later on, White confirmed Oliveira would receive PPV points for UFC 274 – but was unsure and maybe even skeptical if Oliveira would be getting PPV points for the next title defense considering it would technically be a vacated title.