Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev have been booked to fight at UFC 280 for what seems like four months already and the excitement for when the fight was originally booked is still there around the MMA community.
For me, this is the biggest fight of the year. Over the last two years especially, Charles Oliveira has made himself the biggest star in the UFC, with a dominant victory over Tony Ferguson, and three finishes against Michael Chandler, to become champion, Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje to remain the best lightweight in the world.
Islam Makhachev is best described as Khabib 2.0. He possesses that patented suffocating Dagestani wrestling that almost seems unstoppable at times.
This is the UK’s sole PPV event on BT Sport, which shows how big this fight is. We tend to have one PPV event per year and having this fight over Adesanya vs Pereira next month shows the magnitude of these two men coming to blows on October 22nd.
I think another thing that makes this fight massive is both of these men’s fanbases. They’ve been at each other’s necks for months now with both determined that their man will win.
I feel like they’ve treated this fight like another Khabib vs Conor fight in a way. Many Khabib fans side with Islam since he’s his teammate and protege, whereas many Conor fans side with Charles since they’re not fans of the Dagestani fighters.
With only two weeks until Fight Night, the long wait is almost over and with a ridiculously stacked undercard featuring four of the top Bantamweights and more, we could be in for a special night in Abu Dhabi.
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