Former UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira rebounded from his loss to Islam Makhachev in a major way.
Oliveira defeated Beneil Dariush via TKO at the 4:10 mark of the first round in the UFC 289 co-main event Saturday night in Vancouver.
"Do Bronx" opened the finishing sequence with a head kick and then dropped Dariush with two right hands. Dariush immediately scrambled and tried grabbing a leg, but Oliveira got on top and continued to hurt him with ferocious ground-and-pound shots until the referee intervened.
The fight had been going in Dariush's favor. Oliveira opened the round with a big head kick, but Dariush took him to the ground in the opening moments. Oliveira attempted to submit Dariush with a leg lock, but he defended and maintained control.
However, Oliveira returned to his feet with about a minute and a half left in the stanza, and then he opened up with potent offense on the feet and finished the fight.
The Brazilian is back in the win column after having his 11-fight winning streak snapped by Makhachev in a vacant 155-pound title bout last October at UFC 280. He's the first UFC fighter to reach 20 stoppage victories in the promotion.
In his postfight interview, Oliveira called for a rematch with Makhachev and said he's willing to face him at UFC 294 in October in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Oliveira won the lightweight championship in 2021 by knocking out Michael Chandler and defended it once against Dustin Poirier. He was stripped of it after missing weight for a May 2022 bout against Justin Gaethje; Oliveira beat Gaethje by first-round submission to set up the vacant title bout against Makhachev later that year.
Dariush had won eight in a row heading into the co-main event, beating the likes of Mateusz Gamrot, Tony Ferguson, and Drew Dober. This was his first loss since a first-round knockout defeat to Alexander Hernandez in March 2018.
