UFC 280: Previewing Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev and the Rest of the Card
The UFC is going global. Again.
Dana White and Co. are loading the mixed martial arts conglomerate onto planes and taking it on the road for October's monthly pay-per-view extravaganza.
Fight Island—or, more specifically, Yas Island in the heart of Abu Dhabi, capital city of the United Arab Emirates—will be the site of UFC 280, which is set for October 22 as a 13-bout card headlined by a pair of matchups with championships at stake.
Top-ranked lightweight Charles Oliveira and No. 4 Islam Makhachev get the poster-topping position for their title match to fill a vacancy at 155 pounds created when then-champ Oliveira missed weight for a defense against Justin Gaethje at UFC 274 in May.
Oliveira submitted Gaethje in Round 1 to maintain his place atop the weight class, and the company plucked Makhachev, a training partner of retired former champ Khabib Nurmagomedov, to get a title shot on the strength of his 11-1 record since arriving in 2015.
Bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling defends his title for the second time in the co-main slot, where he'll face former two-time titleholder TJ Dillashaw. Sterling won the belt by disqualification and then defended with a split decision against Petr Yan, while Dillashaw had one reign ended by Dominick Cruz and a second after a failed drug test.
But it's not all about the title fights.
The rest of the card features some of the UFC's most familiar faces, and the B/R combat sports team perused the menu to identify a few of the tastier showdowns.
Main Card (ESPN+ PPV, 2 p.m. ET)
Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev
Aljamain Sterling vs. TJ Dillashaw
Petr Yan vs Sean O'Malley
Beneil Dariush vs. Mateusz Gamrot
Katlyn Chookagian vs. Manon Fiorot
Preliminary Card (ESPNews, 10 a.m. ET)
Belal Muhammad vs. Sean Brady
Makhmud Muradov vs. Caio Borralho
Volkan Oezdemir vs. Nikita Krylov
Zubaira Tukhugov vs. Lucas Almeida
Shamil Abdurakhimov vs. Jailton Almeida
Magomed Mustafaev vs. Yamato Nishikawa
Abubakar Nurmagomedov vs. Gadzhi Omargadzhiev
Muhammad Mokaev vs. Malcolm Gordon
Charles Oliveira (33-8) vs. Islam Makhachev (22-1)
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Welcome to the latest installment of "Charles Oliveira Can't Win, Can He?"
Though he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu and the promotion's record-holder for both finishes (19) and submissions (16), it's no stretch to suggest few expected the Brazilian, who'll turn 33 five days before the fight, to be part of yet another UFC main event in 2022.
Oliveira was seven wins into a now-11-fight winning streak when matched up against a version of Tony Ferguson in December 2020 who had lost just once in the previous eight years.
He won nearly every second across all three rounds and was rewarded with a date five months later opposite Michael Chandler, who'd been fast-tracked to a vacant title shot in just his second UFC bout after a decorated run with the Bellator promotion.
Chandler was stopped in two rounds, and Oliveira's first defense was lined up against fan favorite Dustin Poirier, five months off a trilogy-clinching defeat of Conor McGregor.
Poirier was choked out in Round 3, and Oliveira was then matched with Justin Gaethje, who'd defeated Chandler in the meantime in 2021's fight of the year but failed to last four minutes before becoming Oliveira's 21st submission victim in 33 career wins.
This time, it's Makhachev, who is riding a 10-fight unbeaten streak of his own that's included four submissions and two KOs, and has been labeled a -165 favorite to swipe the belt, per DraftKings.
The native of Russia's Dagestani region is an international master of combat sambo and has a stellar ground game that's yielded an average of better than three takedowns per 15-minute match at a 65 percent accuracy rate.
He frequently overwhelms opponents once they're on the floor and has earned his four most recent submissions by four distinct methods, including kimura, armbar, rear-naked choke and arm-triangle choke. But he's also a capable striker and essentially ended a 2018 fight with Gleison Tibau with a single left hand in just 57 seconds.
The result is a fascinating blend of styles that no less an authority than ex-two-division champ Georges St-Pierre thinks will boil down to geography.
"If the fight stay generally in the center of the Octagon, that will give the advantage to Oliveira," St-Pierre told The Schmo. "However, if the fight goes mostly towards the fence, near the fence, that will give the advantage to Islam Makhachev."
Aljamain Sterling (21-3) vs. TJ Dillashaw (17-4)
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Aljamain Sterling is a capable trash-talker no matter the foe, but when pitted against a decorated ex-champ with a dubious clinical history, it provides particularly fertile ground.
He's gone all-in ahead of his date with TJ Dillashaw, surmising that the 36-year-old has worked his way back to No. 2 contender status thanks to some illicit help.
"I would say there's definitely no doubt in my mind that that guy is finding some type of doctor or little micro-dosing or whatever, however that s--t works," Sterling told Submission Radio. "I guarantee you he's finding some type of way to get an edge once again, as he's done his entire UFC career. So I already made peace with it."
For the record, Dillashaw is a muay thai black belt and jiu-jitsu purple belt who has scored wins by submission, KO and decision since arriving to the UFC in 2012.
He had a frenetic 19 takedown attempts in returning from a two-year hiatus to defeat Cory Sandhagen by split decision in July 2021 but averages just 1.63 landed takedowns over 15 minutes and had not actually scored one in three previous fights. On the flip side, he did connect on 110 strikes against Sandhagen and averages 5.26 significant strikes landed per minute.
Sterling also faced Sandhagen in is final pre-title-shot fight and submitted him via rear-naked choke in 88 seconds when they met at UFC 250 two years ago in Las Vegas.
He was taken down seven times in nearly four full rounds when meeting Yan for the first time in March 2021 but took the initiative and scored the fight's only two takedowns when they met in a closely contested rematch 13 months later.
In addition to his conversation skills, Sterling is also a jiu-jitsu black belt and former Division III collegiate All-American wrestler who's submitted three other Octagonal foes and KO'd another while running up a 13-3 record since his UFC arrival in 2014.
And that's enough for Sandhagen to believe he's the better man.
"I don’t think TJ has the amount of punching power that he maybe used to have to be able to stop Sterling or hurt him really bad," he said on The Fighter vs. The Writer podcast (h/t Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). "I don't think he contains that much power. Just from feeling the both of them, too, I don't really think that TJ packs the same punch and I don't think he's going to be as strong as Sterling.
"I think Sterling's wrestling is really discredited and I think that he's an amazing wrestler and I think he's very strong and I think he's going to be able to out-power TJ."
Other Attractions: Petr Yan (16-3) vs. Sean O'Malley (15-1)
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If you billed this one as "Put Up or Shut Up," you wouldn't be wrong.
Petr Yan is a former UFC champion and a reigning No. 1 contender with precisely zero losses in the promotion to anyone not named Aljamain Sterling. Which means he has little to prove.
But his opponent is Sean O'Malley.
And in an era when style can mean as much as substance, that matters.
"Suga" Sean has won eight of nine with the promotion dating back to appearances on Dana White's Contender Series and The Ultimate Fighter, but he's ranked just 12th at 135 pounds and was stopped in one round (by Marlon Vera) the only time he fought inside the Top 10.
Still, he's near the top of the heap when it comes to "it" guys, which is primarily why he's been given the chance to leap 10 spots to get a fight that could mean a title shot if he wins.
To do so, he'll likely rely on edges in speed and footwork alongside physical advantages in height (5'11" to 5'7") and reach (72" to 67") while trying to keep the fight at a distance and turn it into a boxing or kickboxing match.
O'Malley averages 7.75 significant strikes landed per minute with a 62 percent accuracy rate and has been able to avoid nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of opponent attempts.
He defends takedowns at the same 64 percent clip and will need that number and more against Yan, who'd scored at least one takedown in six straight fights before going a combined 0-of-2 in his last two outings.
Can the upset happen? The oddsmakers say no and have installed Yan as a -300 favorite, per DraftKings, but Aljamain Sterling sees the non-title distance as a tipping point against the slow-starting ex-champ.
"If he starts behind the eight ball like that," Sterling told Submission Radio (h/t Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting), "and gives O'Malley a chance in a three-round fight, an opportunity to run up the score on him, pick the shots, it could be a miserable night for Yan."
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Best of the Rest
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Katlyn Chookagian vs. Manon Fiorot
It's step-up time for Fiorot, a 32-year-old from France who's ranked No. 7 at flyweight on the strength of four straight victories since arriving to the promotion early last year.
An ambitious move up the ladder at 125 pounds puts her on the main card and directly into the path of No. 1 contender Chookagian, who's won four straight and five of six overall since a loss to dominant champ Valentina Shevchenko in a 2020 title shot at UFC 247.
Belal Muhammad vs. Sean Brady
Speaking of steps up, it'll be unbeaten eighth-ranked welterweight Brady attempting one of his own in the final prelim bout when he takes on No. 5 Muhammad.
A jiu-jitsu ace, Brady is 15-0 as a pro and 5-0 in the UFC with three decisions and two submissions under his belt, but he's got a daunting task in Muhammad, a striking threat who's 7-0 with a no contest in eight fights since last losing in 2019.
Shamil Abdurakhimov vs. Jailton Almeida
They were supposed to get together at UFC 279 but will try again a month later for a scheduled three-round preliminary bout at heavyweight.
Almeida choked out a late sub within one round after Abdurakhimov bowed out with visa issues, and he'll get a crack at chasing a 12th career submission and making an impression against the 40-something Russian who's been KO'd five times in the UFC and has lost three straight in under eight minutes since the middle of 2019.
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