Who could be a tougher challenge for uncrowned UFC lightweight king Charles Oliveira between top-ranked 155-pounders Islam Makhachev and Beneil Dariush?
UFC Vegas 57’s Thiago Moisses has been in the same cage as both of them, and has some ideas.
Set to return to the octagon Saturday against Christos Giagos in Las Vegas, Moises explained to MMA Fighting why he believes that Khabib Nurmagomedov’s protege is a “more complicated” matchup for Oliveira in the future.
“Dariush makes more use of his jiu jitsu and it would benefit Charles who already has enough jiu jitsu to wrestle with him,” Moises stated. “Makhachev has better wrestling, but he does more of an anti-game on the ground. Charles will not grapple with him if he is able to get [Oliveira] down on the ground. I believe he will just keep Charles there until it’s too late. It would likely be .”
more challenging for him, he’s an extremely smart fighter.
Moises lost a decision to Dariush in his octagon debut back in 2018. After a trio of wins over Bobby Green and Michael Johnson, Moises was scheduled against Makhachev in 2021. for a 5-round main event. Moises lost that bout via fourth-round submission.
“I think that a fight [between Makhachev] and Oliveira is 50-50,” he said. Charles has great odds of subduing him, or knocking him out. Charles does a great job on his feet. But I see Islam also taking the fight to a conclusion and doing his own thing, getting into a position, holding it, and not allowing him to move. He won’t allow you to do anything
” He believes Islam to be very strong, but he is not a superhuman. He has flaws, he gets tired as well, and I don’t think he’s like Khabib.”
Moises wants to be back on track following defeats to Makhachev, Joel Alvarez and others in his last bout in 2021.. Giagos was called “a highly experienced opponent” by Moises, but he made it clear that his aim is to win the fight.
“I’ve seen his fights and his rhythm drops a lot from the second to third rounds,” Moises said, “So my goal is to knock him out or submit him in the end of the fight.”
This time, Moises said, he will stick to his game plan and not make similar mistakes to the ones he made against Alvarez, when he lost via first-round TKO.
“I’m using [my past losses] in a positive way, to get there hungrier to win this fight,” he said. Joel Alvarez is very tall so I could have grappled with him more. It was hard to trade with him.
” I wasn’t comfortable trading on my feet but didn’t see many dangers. The fight took a turn when I was punched in my eye. .”
A different result could have occurred if I’d followed my plan and taken him down earlier.
