Charles Oliveira Has One Goal in Mind: ‘My Focus is the Belt’

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship champ Charles Oliveira does not care who stands across the Octagon with him as long as gold is on the line.

Celebrating a whopping eight million followers on his Instagram page, Brazil’s Charles Oliveira is the most popular mixed martial arts fighter from that country, even surpassing Alex Pereira’s 6.8 million. The next fight for the jiu-jitsu ace is bound to be a significant one, if it is entirely up to Oliveira. “Do Bronxs” spoke to Sherdog on Wednesday, anxious about his next opponent and hopeful that he will be vying for a belt of some kind—even if it is of the “BMF” variety—in that next outing.

“For me, what makes sense is to fight for the title,” Oliveira evaluated. “I talked a lot about BMF because Islam [Makhachev] said that he just wants to return in October, and October is too much time [out of the cage]. I want to fight [on International Fight Week in June]. But later, Islam said he wanted to fight [on that week as well], so I took the focus from the BMF belt, against [Max] Holloway, and returned my focus to the lightweight belt.”

The second possibility suggested by the former champion was to welcome Ilia Topuria for an interim strap.

“If it’s for a belt, I’m in, it doesn't matter who is on the other side. What does not make sense for me is to do one more fight to fight for the belt next,” the Brazilian noted.

At the conclusion of the UFC 314 co-main event, the victorious Paddy Pimblett threw his name in the hat of possible Oliveira adversaries. “Do Bronxs” could not help himself in addressing the challenge, although not in the way Pimblett might have wished.

“Paddy is a tough kid,” Oliveira said. “He proved how he is evolving against [Michael] Chandler. I understand his desire, but as I said, my focus is the belt. When I was reaching top 10, I also wanted to face the top five. That’s part of the game. Pimblett would be a great fight, but not now.”

If it is a rematch with Makhachev in the cards for Oliveira, the former champion reiterated that he would not do any special training against the Russian.

“I just need to be there and make things happen. In the first fight I just wasn't there,” the Brazilian admitted.

Recently, Jean Silva offered in an interview that he was very upset by the lack of support from the Brazilian fans in his fight with Bryce Mitchell. If it were up to him, Silva would choose to compete somewhere other than Brazil in his next encounter. Oliveira disagreed wholeheartedly.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, if my phone rang and asked me to fight in a UFC in Brazil, I would love to,” Oliveira remarked. “It’s been a long time since I fought there, but whenever I have the opportunity, I ask. I didn’t see Jean’s interview; it could be related to something he said and the supporters didn’t interpret it well. But in my case, whenever I lost, I was embraced by Brazilian cheering. Brazilian cheering is unique. So, I would love to fight here again.”