Charles Oliveira’s journey to becoming one of the UFC lightweight elite has been a long, slow process. The owner of the UFC’s record for most submission finishes in the Octagon started his career with the promotion back in 2010. The intervening decade has come with numerous ups and downs, but now on a seven fight win streak, Oliveira has finally worked his way into contender status. Along with that success, however, has come a narrowing field of potential opponents—especially if Oliveira only wants to fight other fighters ranked ahead of him.
“If Charles could choose it would be someone from the top-5, any of them,” Oliveira told MMA Fighting in a recent interview, “but since things have been rough and I don’t know what’s going on and what I’m supposed to do, if I have to go there and talk trash, throw chairs through a bus, attack someone… I don’t know.