Charles Oliveria and Dustin Poirier face off on Saturday in the main event of UFC 269 in a lightweight title bout at the T-Moble Arena in Las Vegas.
Charles “Da Bronx” Oliveira comes into this fight with a 31-8 record overall and he is currently the champion. Oliveira’s last fight came against Michael Chandler in May of 2021 and it was early in the second round that he finished the fight by knockout. He was actually being outstruck at the point that he finished the fight. He has won nine fights in a row and eight of those fights have been by finish. He is averaging 3.26 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 3.01 significant strikes per minute. Oliveira wants to get the fight to the ground, averaging 2.64 takedowns every 15 minutes, and he is successful on 44 percent of his takedown attempts. He also is elite at submissions and five of his last nine fights have ended that way.
On the other side of this matchup is Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier who comes into this game with a 28-6 record overall and he has won seven of the last eight fights. The only loss came against Khabib four fights ago. Poirier’s last fight was against Conor McGregor and it was quite the beating and he won by knockout. Each of his last two wins have been by knockout over McGregor. Poirier is averaging 5.62 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 4.19 significant strikes per minute. Poirier is averaging 5.62 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 4.19 significant strikes per minute. He is averaging 1.50 takedowns but he is only successful on 36 percent of his takedown attempts.
The wrong person is favored in this game. The better fighter is Oliveria and he is going to get Poirier in a bad position and lock in a submission attempt. Look for Oliveira to look really impressive in his fight, and he is going to pull the upset.
AUTHOR: Shane Mickle
Mitch's Take...
