Charles Oliveira will have his hands full in his upcoming clash with Ilia Topuria, according to ex-UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling.
It was confirmed last week by UFC boss Dana White that Brazilian submission expert Oliveira will take on Topuria in the UFC 317 main event to determine a new 155-pound champion, following Islam Makhachev’s decision to vacate his throne ahead of a pursuit of a title challenge against the newly-crowned welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena.
But despite being a former lightweight champion in his own right Oliveira, who has won 13 of his past 15 contests in the UFC cage, faces a stern test in the unbeaten Topuria, who will compete in a lightweight title bout for the first time in his UFC tenure.
“Oliveira gets dropped every fight,” Sterling told The Weekly Scraps podcast, as noted by MMA Fighting.
“Just about every fight. The last eight fights, I would say,” Sterling added.
“With that said, we know Ilia Topuria can crack. We’ve seen [Topuria] get dropped before by Jai Herbert, come back. That was the first time he fought at 155. He says he feels better at 155, his power is way different at 155. We know he can already crack at ‘45.
“What is that power going to translate into at 155 and if he can touch Charles the way he hits everybody else, I think it’s a bad night and Ilia’s a two-division champion.”
That said, few fighters in UFC history provide quite as much danger on the ground as Oliveira, as evidenced by his 21 career submission victory wins – and if he sees success in that department, it could cause serious trouble for Topuria.
“But the grappling department. We haven’t seen anyone force the grappling issue against Ilia and I wonder if ‘do Bronx’ will try to do that to see if he can gas him out and take away some of the pop from his punches. That’s the big question mark.”
But when push comes to shove, Sterling says that Topuria simply has more ways to win.
“I’m leaning towards Ilia,” Sterling explained.. “I think that’s smart money. Of course, Oliveira can win, if he can grapple with him early, maybe he surprises us and shows us that Ilia can get tired and take off some of the sting of those punches, but then what does that look like for Oliveira in the later rounds?”
