Michael Chandler will face Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight championship in UFC 262, and he predicts another first round KO win for himself.
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He may have fought only once in the UFC but Michael Chandler is a seasoned veteran of the sport. The American made a name for himself in rival promotion Bellator before debuting at UFC 257 in January 2021. There, he stunned everyone by knocking out Dan Hooker in the first round itself. Chandler will face Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight championship in UFC 262, and he predicts another first round KO win for himself. “He’s going to get his clock cleaned. I walk out into a packed arena in Houston, Texas, 19,000 red, white and blue-blooded Americans chanting my name, rooting for me,” the 35-year-old told MMA Fighting.
“I go out there and I get in Charles Oliveira’s face immediately and he will realize and feel from the first exchange, from the pressure I put on him, he will immediately start to second guess himself.
“He will immediately start to overreact. He will immediately start to worry about his legs. I’ll go to his head. I’m going to go to his legs.
“I’m going to go to his body, I’m going to mix it up. A punch is going to land, he’s going to get his clock cleaned.
“He’s going to wake up to the bright lights of me standing on top the cage about to get my hand raised and UFC gold around my waist. That’s how it’s going to go. I predict it’s going to be in the first round.
“Then I predict a phenomenal end to 2021 and then we’re going to carry this baby on for a couple of years.”
Michael Chandler vs Charles Oliveira will decide the first lightweight champion since Khabib Nurmagomedov. The fighter from Dagistan retired at the end of 2020 and the title has been in limbo since.
Oliveira’s strengths lie in his ground game, but Chandler is a more powerful competitor. The winner of this match will most likely face the winner of the bout between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier.
However, that bout will take place at UFC 264 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two have faced off on two seperate occasions, the most recent of which came in UFC 257.
That bout saw Poirier emerge victorious, while their maiden bout went the way of McGregor.
