Charles Oliveira expects to KO Michael Chandler to win the lightweight title: “I’ll catch him”

Charles Oliveira is confident he will become the new lightweight champion at UFC 262.

After Dana White confirmed Khabib Nurmagomedov was retired, the promotion was quick to book Oliveira vs. Chandler for the lightweight title. In the fight, ‘Do Bronx’ doesn’t expect Chandler to take him down, nor does he plan to back down as Dan Hooker did in Chandler’s debut.

“If he takes me down, he will do me a favor. I believe he will pretty much try to keep the fight standing and repeat what he did with Dan Hooker, but if he has one good punch, I have many more combinations,” Oliveira said to Sherdog. “Furthermore, I’ll not run from him like Hooker did. On the contrary, for each of his attempts, I will have a stronger answer. Of course, Chandler deserves credit for that debut win. But, if Hooker were not so concerned to talk bulls—t about me in the week of the fight, I’m sure that he could have done better.”

Although Oliveira doesn’t expect Chandler to try and take him down, the Brazilian plans to use his wrestling. He knows his grappling will be the difference-maker in this fight.

“He improved my wrestling a lot,” Oliveira said. “If you see my last fights, I took down all my opponents and of course will focus on that discipline against Chandler.”

However, despite the fact Charles Oliveira is known as a grappler, he believes he will beat Chandler by KO as he’ll lander a counter punch when the former Bellator champ comes forward.

“He always comes very strong, and I’ll catch him with a counter hit,” Oliveira said.

Charles Oliveira enters his title fight riding an eight-fight winning streak and coming off a dominant win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 256.

Do you think Charles Oliveira will beat Michael Chandler at UFC 262?