Oliveira vows to return ‘10 times stronger’ after UFC 280 defeat
Former champion Charles Oliveira analyzed his loss to Islam Makhachev in the main event of UFC 280.
Charles Oliveira has no excuses for his loss at UFC 280.
After being dominated by the newly crowned Islam Makhachev, the former UFC lightweight champion shared some of his impressions on his performance, as well as his training camp and his future intentions.
“There’s not much to say. It wasn’t my day,” Oliveira said in an interview with Combate shortly after UFC 280’s main event. “Islam was better than me on the mat and on the feet. I haven’t had time to watch it yet. I asked the boys some things in the bathroom. He was better than me today. I have to give him credit and go back home. I know myself. I’ll come back 10 times stronger. I have a family and a huge team that will make that happen. We’ll take it back.”
Though ‘Do Bronx’ admitted that Makhachev was one step ahead of him in all aspects of the fight, he also noted that he would not have done anything differently during his training camp.
“I wouldn’t change a thing we did during camp. We did everything really well,” Oliveira said. “I was hitting hard, my mind was strong. In the lockeroom, I was telling my team: ‘Be at peace. It’s already been written. We’ll take what’s ours.’ But we don’t write it, God does. That’s the truth. I’ve learned a lot from it. It wasn’t my time. I think it was my day to lose, to go back home, relax and overcome.”
Oliveira’s loss to Makhachev snapped an 11-fight winning streak that included wins over some of lightweight’s most notable names, such as Justin Gaethje, Michael Chandler, Tony Ferguson and Dustin Poirier, among others. Before UFC 280, the 33-year-old’s most recent loss was a TKO defeat to Paul Felder, in December 2017.