Colby Covington offered to welcome Charles Oliveira to the welterweight division, and “do Bronx” isn’t ruling out facing “Chaos” in his next UFC appearance.
Covington mentioned the Brazilian recently after indicating he will not be fighting Ian Machado Garry, and went an extra mile by saying he has better grappling than the man who holds the record for most submission wins all-time in the UFC.
Oliveira admitted that he didn’t expect the callout, but liked it.
“I was surprised he said my name,” Oliveira said in an interview with UFC Brasil. “Colby has this style of selling fights, talking a bunch to crap. I don’t know him personally so I can’t say, I only see it on TV and when he talks. He called me out, he said his jiu-jitsu is better, his wrestling is better, that he’s better than me in everything.
“Could it be a big fight? It could be. It’s a fight that would make me money, going up a division and fighting stronger. But do I think about it? I don’t know. I’ll sit down and talk to the UFC and see what they think. I think [my managers] Diego [Lima] and [Jorge Patino] ‘Macaco’ will clash heads with them [to decide]. But it could be. We can’t rule it out.”
Covington last fought in December 2023, losing a one-sided decision to 170-pound champion Leon Edwards. The former interim welterweight champion has been victorious in 12 of his 16 octagon appearances.
Oliveira, a former UFC lightweight champion, most recently came up short against Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 300 in April, dropping his UFC record to 22-10 with one no-contest.
Oliveira said he had a boil on his calf two days before UFC 300 weigh-ins in April and had to wait a bit longer to be able to return to training. “Do Bronx” hopes to be back in the cage by July or August, before the birth of his son Dominic, but has no names on the table yet.
In his head, however, Oliveira has another potential opponent that interests him for a legacy fight: BMF titleholder Max Holloway.
Oliveira and Holloway fought in a featherweight showdown in 2015 and the Hawaiian star won after Oliveira suffered a neck injury right after the 1:30 mark.
“Absolutely. Why not? It’s about legacy,” Oliveira said. “Max Holloway has the belt and we fought before and everybody knows I had an injury during the fight. So, why not fight now? It would be good too. We talk about legacy, history, so winning this belt would be something gigantic too.”
