Preview: UFC 300 ‘Pereira vs. Hill’

Lightweights

#4 LW | Arman Tsarukyan (21-3, 8-2 UFC) vs. #7 P4P | Charles Oliveira (34-9, 22-9 UFC)

ODDS: Tsarukyan (-225), Oliveira (+185)

All of Oliveira’s fights are excellent, but this one is particularly interesting as both a stylistic matchup and a fight with extremely high stakes. “Do Bronx” burst onto the UFC scene as a dynamic submission artist in 2010, but after a few years, it looked like the Brazilian would be a victim of the UFC’s aggressive matchmaking. With every spectacular lower-level win, Oliveira would get pushed into a tough fight against a top veteran and get handled. The end result seemed to be a shattering of Oliveira’s confidence. He was still one of the most lethal finishers on the entire UFC roster but developed a well-deserved reputation for folding as soon as times got tough, with his bouncing between featherweight and lightweight only adding to his reputation as a flake. After a 2017 loss to Paul Felder, Oliveira reeled off submission wins over Clay Guida, Christos Giagos and Jim Miller, but the expectation was still that he would eventually hit a ceiling and fold once again. Then came a turning point against David Teymur in 2019. Teymur caused a ton of frustration and landed a few fouls that normally would have taken Oliveira out of the fight, but he instead steeled himself, staged a comeback and charged up the rankings as a new man. With some newfound confidence, Oliveira’s approach suddenly became lethal. Constantly marching forward to bring the fight to his opponent, Oliveira has banked on the threat of his submission game to lead opponents into panic, with their refusal to take things to the ground allowing him to further pour on offense on the feet. It worked perfectly against the older guard of top lightweight contenders. Oliveira won the vacant belt in a chaotic war against Michael Chandler, defended it successfully against Dustin Poirier and then handled Justin Gaethje, though Oliveira lost the belt on the scale beforehand. However, a matchup against Islam Makhachev proved poisonous. Makhachev’s own ground skills meant he had little fear of Oliveira’s grappling threats, allowing him to meet the Brazilian head-on and win the subsequent war of attrition rather handily. Even though Makhachev’s game plan worked perfectly, Oliveira’s rebound win over Beneil Dariush affirmed it takes more than just strategy to beat the former champion. Dariush also had little fear of Oliveira and charged right into danger. Oliveira was still able to survive on the ground before blasting Dariush and walking away with a first-round knockout. That set up Oliveira for a title rematch against Makhachev until injuries got in the way. The title picture is now more muddled, but Oliveira still puts himself in strong position with a win against a top young talent in Tsarukyan.

Tsarukyan is angling for his own shot at Makhachev, which would be a nice full-circle moment for the Armenian’s UFC career. A top prospect right out of the gates, the UFC saw fit to throw Tsarukyan in the deep end and pit him against Makhachev in his UFC debut. The result was a hard-fought win that was among the toughest fights of Makhachev’s career to date, and Tsarukyan has done nothing but impress since. Tsarukyan’s first few post-Makhachev fights saw him make his hay as an aggressive grinder, and as soon as he needed to start showing some finishing ability, that is exactly what happened. Wins over Giagos and Joel Alvarez turned into absolute maulings and earned Tsarukyan his first main event slot against Mateusz Gamrot. Tsarukyan and Gamrot combined for 25 minutes of high-level action that ended in a quite controversial decision. Tsarukyan separated himself as the better striker but tired a bit in the process, allowing Gamrot to steal the decision with some control-heavy rounds on the mat. In hindsight, it probably worked out for the best. Gamrot is a veteran who was much better-served jumping immediately into title contention, while Tsarukyan got another year-plus of seasoning ahead of his eventual charge into the championship picture, scoring two more dominant wins over Damir Ismagulov and Joaquim Silva. A December fight against Dariush figured to be Tsarukyan’s toughest test to date, particularly given the Kings MMA product’s skill as a defensive wrestler. However, it wound up as the second-quickest win of Tsarukyan’s career, as he scored a knockout in just 64 seconds. This figures to be a tough matchup for Oliveira, as Tsarukyan seems to be in the mold of fighter who will not care about what the Brazilian has to offer on offense, which is typically the quickest path to blowing through the former champion’s game. Again, though, it takes more than the right approach to beat Oliveira, as his own fight against Dariush showed. Even in a bad style matchup, Oliveira has enough venom to his game that there is usually somewhere near a 40% chance at worst that he can still pull off the upset. Here, Tsarukyan’s aggression out of the gate can be a bit spotty, so there is a chance that Oliveira comes blazing out of the gates and causes a level of chaos that forces him into a bad decision. Still, given everything Tsarukyan has shown to date, he looks to be closer to the Makhachev level than the Dariush level in terms of being able to blow the fight open once he is given an advance. No matter who wins, this should be a good time but not a long time. The pick is Tsarukyan via second-round stoppage.

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Pereira vs. Hill
Zhang vs. Yan
Gaethje vs. Holloway
Tsarukyan vs. Oliveira
Nickal vs. Brundage
The Prelims