We've finally reached Friday, which means it is time to preview another main event. This weekend is UFC 274 as we've established and we're in for another Charles Oliveira title defense, which means we should see another banger of a fight. Both of these men are finishers to the highest degree and I honestly can't envision a scenario where this fight goes the distance. I don't expect this fight to last long and probably not even to start the fourth, but it should be incredible while it lasts. Despite what some people still choose to believe about Oliveira, neither fighter is afraid to walk through some damage in order to do their own. I feel like this fight hasn't gotten a ton of hype or promotion though and I guess there really is no history or anything between the two to go off of, but I feel like there just hasn't really been the fan fair behind this one for whatever reason. I'm excited for it as the resident Charles Oliveira fan, but I'm still wavering on my pick.
Justin Gaethje is the challenger and will be in the blue corner for this one. Gaethje is probably one of the most exciting fighters on the roster and maybe even makes the all time list in terms of pure chaotic entertainment. The fans have fully embraced him as he embodies the wildness that so many of us have come to love about this sport. Gaethje is a bit of a throwback as he wants everything to be a standup fight to the death and he is generally well liked for it. Gaethje's name first got hot during his run in the World Series of Fighting, where he won their championship in 2014. He successfully defended his belt five times and won all of those fights inside the distance before coming over to the UFC. He made his UFC debut against Michael Johnson in July of 2017 and won that fight by TKO late in the second round. He fell into a small losing streak after that when he was finished in consecutive fights by Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. Gaethje had a bit of an issue where he was getting a bit too wild in those fights and opened himself up too much. There's a fine line between effectively wild and aggressive and subjecting yourself to unnecessary risk and Gaethje was on the wrong side of that line for a stretch of time. After those losses, Gaethje refined his game just enough to really go on a run. He pulled off four consecutive knockout wins over James Vick, Edson Barboza, Cowboy Cerrone, and Tony Ferguson. He became the interim champion after ending Tony's long winning streak, which I talked about the other day when I previewed Tony vs Chandler. The unification bout with Khabib ended the way all of the fights with Khabib end and that is with him getting his hand raised, but I thought Gaethje represented himself well before the fight was finished. He was really damaging Khabib's leg and I'm not sure how long he would have been able to take those kicks. However, that isn't what happened and Gaethje lost via triangle in the second round and it was sort of unclear where Gaethje would go from there. When Khabib walked away, it left the division in a state of unrest. Gaethje would take some time away from the sport and not fight for 13 months. We would eventually see him again against Michael Chandler in my fight of the year, which he won by unanimous decision. That brings us to present day, where Gaethje is in his second undisputed title shot and what may be his last. Stylistically, Gaethje uses his wild striking and powerful hands to finish fights. His striking his as powerful and violent as anyone who has ever fought at 155 lbs. He strikes with incredible volume from the first bell until the last. He goes all out as well with nothing held back in every shot he throws. Fighting with that much effort leaves very clear openings for counter shots and while that has hurt him in the past, he has tightened that up a bit over the last few fights. His best weapon is his leg kicks though, Gaethje will throw low kicks just about as hard as he can and will throw them early and often. He does an excellent job of landing them in the same spot over and over to limit his opponent's movement and compromising the rest of their game. Not only is it hard to move with a damaged leg, but they are unable to really get any push when throwing their own strikes or put any power behind their takedown attempts. Despite what some may conclude after the Khabib fight, Gaethje does have pretty solid takedown defense. He comes from a wrestling background and it shows most of the time. He never uses his wrestling offensively, but against even pretty good wrestlers, he can stuff a lot of their shots and even when he does go down, he has a solid base in order to work his way back to the feet. I think the biggest weakness in Gaethje's game is his willingness to be finished, but it is also part of what makes him great. Justin Gaethje does everything in his power to finish the fight for himself. Going all out like that uses all of the energy he has and leaves openings for both knockouts and submissions. Gaethje will likely over extend himself at some point, it is just a matter of what Oliveira can do with those opportunities. Gaethje will throw wild strikes that are bit and loopy and Oliveira will have a chance to counter with shorter, straighter punches, much like he did in the finishing sequence against Michael Chandler. The grappling phase is clearly the weaker spot in Gaethje's game and he's going to have to work hard in order to survive the ground exchanges if they take place. I think he has a much better chance of stuffing the takedowns than he does of just surviving with Oliveira in his guard though and the pure wrestling is the better part of Gaethje's grappling than the actual groundwork. He has a legitimate chance to win the title here and I think people might be actually underestimating him a bit.
This is coming out rather late again and that is partially because I didn't start this last night like I normally do, but also because I was locked into the weigh in show this morning. As you probably know by now, the defending champion Charles Oliveira missed weight and has been stripped of his title. The current plan is for Oliveira to still fight and he looked like he was relatively ok on the scale. He wasn't shaking or on wobbly legs, so as things currently stand, it looks like he will be able to go tomorrow night. If you haven't seen the news or haven't read up on it yet, the situation will play out as follows: Oliveira is stripped and will still fight, but will be unable to retain his title. If Oliveira wins, the title will be vacant, but if Gaethje wins, he will still become the undisputed champion. I can't help but be incredibly sad for Oliveria, but we'll have time to talk about that in the post fight stuff. Oliveira has had a long journey to the top. He made his UFC debut in 2010 when he submitted Darren Elkins. He had an up and down start to his career and struggled to find his footing in the UFC. In his defense, a lot of those earlier losses were against some really tough competition. His losses in those early years came to Jim Miller, Cowboy Cerrone, Cub Swanson, and Frankie Edgar, so there's no shame in losing to those guys. Oliveira gained some momentum with a four fight win steak that started in 2014 that included wins over Nik Lentz and Jeremy Stephens, but he suffered a weird injury early in his fight against Max Holloway, that started off another rough patch for Oliveira. This coincided with the time when Charles had a tough time consistently making 145 lbs and was missing weight somewhat regularly. He made the full time move to 155 lbs in 2017 and defeated Will Brooks in the first round. He lost to Paul Felder in his next appearance and hasn't lost since. Since that fight, he's won 10 in a row including wins over Clay Guida, Jim Miller, Nik Lentz, Jared Gordon, Kevin Lee, Tony Ferguson, Michael Chandler and Dustin Poirier. As you likely know, the Chandler fight was for the vacant title and the Poirier fight was his first defense. Oliveira fought most of his career as a jiu jitsu ace and that is putting it lightly. He has the UFC record for most submissions and really isn't showing any signs of slowing down in that department. There's been a lot of fighters who have come over to MMA from the world of competitive BJJ, but none of them feel as consistently dangerous as Oliveira does. However, Oliveira always had those skills, even when he was getting inconsistent results. What took Oliveira from a talented, but inconsistent fighter to 10 wins in a row and a champion is the evolution of his striking. He's made himself into not just a competent striker, but a very good one. He strikes very technically and does so with pretty good power for a guy who isn't particularly muscular. He doesn't strike with crazy volume, but it is solid. He showed more evolution last time against Poirier when he focused on the body work in the early going with front kicks to the body and knees in the clinch. He was able to deplete Poirier and eventually get the finish, despite losing the first round. I think the last thing holding Oliveira back from being a truly dominant champion is his offensive wrestling. While his ground game is second to none, he doesn't do a great job of actually getting the fight down. He has improved with time, but he still isn't a great freestyle wrestler. He gets 2.50 takedowns per 15 minutes and has a 41% success rate on his takedowns, which is just ok in terms of efficiency. His takedown defense isn't particularly fantastic by percentage, but no one really tries to get Oliveira down in the first place because of how dangerous he is even off of his back. The other main weakness in Oliveira's game is his durability. Now, there used to be a narrative around Charles that he was a bit weak and that he would quit and that isn't what I'm talking about. Oliveira has long overcome that narrative in my mind after he had comeback wins over Chandler and Poirier. Beyond that label on him from earlier in his career, his chin isn't the strongest. He's been hurt in his last couple fights by powerful strikers and I imagine that Gaethje will have an opportunity to do the same. Now, Oliveira has been able to survive those times when he's been dropped, but he can and has been wobbled and hurt. Beyond those few things though, Oliveira is as close to a complete fighter as we have in the lightweight division right now.
The keys to victory section is a bit thrown off with the weight situation for Oliveira. There's a lot of questions that we just won't have the answers to until we actually see him in the fight. He didn't really look too depleted on the scale, but we don't know how bad the cut really was for him. He wasn't wobbly or shaky or falling off the scale, which is a good sign, but missing weight as the active champion is obviously indicative of something not going as planned. Oliveira was already someone who wasn't known for having an iron chin, so how much does the bad weight cut add to that. On top of just his chin, we have to wonder how this will effect Oliveira's cardio. He isn't known as someone with a cardio issue, but he isn't really someone who has cardio for days either, so it is hard to say what we will get out of him. The plan for Gaethje would have been to test Oliveira's durability before this issue, so nothing changes there, but I wonder if Gaethje comes out a little more cautious because there is an increased chance for Oliveira to tire out. He could go the opposite and just put the pedal to the metal and try to force him to gas early, but that puts himself at a higher risk of being finished early while Charles is fresh. This has really thrown a wrench into things, but obviously, this only helps Gaethje's chances. There are also the mental games this will play with Oliveira. I have to imagine that he is so dejected and disappointed right now. Does that result in him mailing it in or having a distracted performance? I doubt that he just completely falls flat, but it has to be impacting his thinking and focus for the next 30 or so hours. Even without all of that, there was the issue of fighting Justin Gaethje in the first place. From just that perspective, they key for Oliveira was going to be his ability to get the fight to the ground. While Oliveira does have very good striking, standing with Justin Gaethje for potentially five rounds is going to be a lot to ask. He needs to have stretches or rounds where he wins them with several minutes of ground control to take some of the pressure off of him. The contrast to that for Gaethje is to keep the fight standing for as long as possible. One takedown is all Oliveira needs to find a submission and finish the fight, but as long as it is standing, Gaethje has the advantage. For him, he just needs to keep things under control enough to stay safe. He's never going to be the calm striker that Israel Adesanya is, but he can't come out and completely throw caution to the wind either. If he is completely reckless, he's either going to get caught with strikes or over extend and get taken down. I think it would be very wise for Gaethje to really lean on his low kicks in the early going. He has the best low kicks in all of MMA and Oliveira should be susceptible to some, even though he knows they're coming. Those are the best weapon Gaethje has and it is also the best thing for him to do in order to damage Oliveira while minimizing the risk to himself. Justin doesn't use a typical jab too much or I would recommend that as well. With Oliveira in a somewhat or what is presumed to be a somewhat compromised state, I think touching him as much as possible, even if it isn't max power is the best route for Gaethje to go. That isn't typically Gaethje's game, but if Whittman can squeeze a little of that out of him, I think that is his best route to victory.
What do you guys think? What are your predictions for this fight? What are your keys to victory? How does the weight situation change things for you? Leave your thoughts and comments below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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