Max Holloway is a BMF, but Charles Oliveira Deserves the Crown After UFC 326 Dominance

Charles Oliveira is the UFC's newest BMF champion, and it's hard to imagine anyone more befitting of that title.

Brazil's Oliveira, a former lightweight champion and one of the best fighters in the division's history, got his first crack at BMF glory in the main event of Saturday's UFC 326 card in Las Vegas. His opponent was defending champion Max Holloway, a tenacious volume puncher from Hawaii, with wins over Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje in his last two BMF bouts.

Heading into the fight, the oddsmakers—and the clear majority of fans—had a lot of faith in Holloway. Most seemed to be backing the Hawaiian to win, and many predicted a finish. In the end, however, Oliveira claimed the title with an utterly one-sided decision win.

It was admittedly not the kind of performance one typically associates with the BMF belt.

The BMF title is a novelty created to celebrate the UFC's most entertaining fighters, even if they are not in contention for their division's undisputed titles. So far, the resulting matchups have been explosive striking battles, often ending with violent knockouts.

Oliveira took a different path against Holloway.

Just moments into the first round, he was shooting for Holloway's hips and soon had his opponent on the ground. From there, he began to control the action with apparent ease, floating from top control to deep rear-naked choke attempts.

Holloway miraculously survived until the end of the round, but it was already abundantly clear that Oliveira's wrestling and jiu-jitsu would be a huge factor in the action to come.

As it turns out, it was rinse and repeat.

In round two, Oliveira once again grounded the fight with little effort, and spent the entire remainder of the round controlling Holloway and hunting for submissions. The trend continued into rounds three, four and five, with Holloway mounting almost no offense of his own outside a few snappy punches. By the time it was over, Oliveira had amassed 20:49 of control time—the sixth most ever achieved in a UFC fight.

"Charles Oliveira remarkably adds another layer to his appreciable legend," commentator Jon Anik said shortly after the fight ended, putting it very lightly.

It was a tremendously disappointing loss for Holloway, who surely envisioned the fight unfolding very differently. In a way, however, it affirmed just how much Holloway embodies the BMF ethos. Most people don't survive more than a few minutes on the ground with Oliveira, let alone five rounds. Mateusz Gamrot didn't last fall. Neither could Justin Gaethje nor Dustin Poirier. Yet Holloway endured Oliveira's grappling hell and managed to gut his way out of multiple submission attempts along the way. He didn't get the win, but his surviving to the final bell is definitely a moral victory.

"Max is the toughest guy I've ever fought against," Oliveira said humbly in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan.

"If this division has two BMFs, those two BMFs are Charles Oliveira and Max Holloway."

Oliveira's win over Holloway may not have lived up to the BMF billing, but there is no question he still deserves the crown. Outside of Ilia Topuria, who infamously became the first man to knock Holloway out in 2024, nobody has ever been as dominant against the Hawaiian legend. On that basis alone, it is an impressive feather in Oliveira's cap.

That cap is getting pretty crowded.

In the early days of his UFC career, Oliveira actually had a reputation as a quitter — thanks in large part to a bizarre TKO loss to Holloway at featherweight in 2015, coincidentally. In the years since, however, he has developed a reputation as one of the lightweight division's most dangerous and tenacious fighters. And he's shattered records along the way.

Oliveira holds the record for most finishes in UFC history, at 21; most submissions, at 17; and most post-fight bonuses, at 21. He also ranks in the top 10 for most fights, most wins, and most submission attempts.

He hasn't been racking up these accolades against nobodies, either. Beyond his impressive wins over Holloway, Gamrot, Gaethje, and Poirier, which we've already covered, he has dominated the likes of Beneil Dariush, Michael Chandler (twice), Tony Ferguson, Kevin Lee, and Jim Miller. He has made a career out of unthinkably brilliant performances against the best opposition available. His lopsided win over Holloway was simply the latest example of this.

At 36, and with a long list of brutal wars behind him, Oliveira is clearly nearing the end of his career — even if his win over Holloway proved he's still one of the best in the world. It remains to be seen what he is able to achieve between now and his retirement, whenever that happens to be. Whatever the future holds, there is no question he is a bona fide BMF. Then again, that's been true for years. He just has a belt to prove it now.