UFC Predictions: UFC 269: Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier
This weekend marks the final UFC pay-per-view of 2021 as the promotion heads to Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena for UFC 269: Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier.
UFC 269 features two title fights and a number of excellent bouts underneath, even if it lost one of its best fights in the form of Jorge Masvidal vs. Leon Edwards.
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Can this show deliver in the same way that blockbusters like UFC 267 and UFC 261 have this year? Only time will tell.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC 269: Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier.
#1. UFC lightweight title: Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier
If Charles Oliveira’s title win over Michael Chandler at UFC 262 marked the beginning of a new era in the UFC’s lightweight division, then this fight is essentially where the division moves on from Khabib Nurmagomedov's reign for good.
Following his win over Conor McGregor at UFC 257 in January, Dustin Poirier probably should’ve fought for the title next. However, ‘The Diamond’ chose to end his trilogy with McGregor, which allowed Chandler to slip into the fight with Oliveira instead.
Thankfully, we’ve got to this fight eventually and in the post-Khabib world, it really does mark a meeting of the best two 155lbers in the world.
Nobody really expected Oliveira to get this far. ‘Do Bronx’ debuted in the UFC back in 2010 and while he was always capable of brilliance in the octagon, he always seemed too fragile to really get to the top of his division, whether that was featherweight or lightweight.
However, it was easy to forget how young the Brazilian was when he debuted, just 20 years old, and at some point as he approached his late 20’s, something changed for him. Oliveira put a little more muscle onto his frame, improved his striking and ever since he submitted Clay Guida at UFC 225 in 2018, he’s been on an absolute tear.
‘Do Bronx’ is now on a lengthy nine-fight win streak, with his opponents getting progressively trickier until he downed Chandler in May to claim the vacant UFC lightweight title.
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That fight also marked a major change for Oliveira in that it was the first time on this current run that we’d really seen him badly hurt. Chandler dropped him in the first round and basically destroyed him on the ground, only for the once-fragile Brazilian to recover to knock the former Bellator champion out in the second round.
Poirier, meanwhile, has been on quite the journey of his own since debuting in the UFC back in 2011. Once largely a grappling-based fighter, ‘The Diamond’ now possesses one of the best pressure-boxing games in the UFC, something he’s used to defeat the likes of McGregor, Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez.
So how do these two match up? On the surface of things, you’d probably give Oliveira the advantage on the ground and Poirier the advantage standing. However, that’d probably be doing each man’s skills a disservice, as they’ve both displayed finishing abilities in all areas.
Essentially then, this one could almost definitely go either way. Right now, it feels like the momentum lies slightly more with Oliveira. Sure, Poirier is coming off wins over McGregor, but how relevant the Irishman truly is at this point is a question mark.
‘Do Bronx’, on the other hand, has wrecked every fighter put in front of him since 2018. With 14 submissions to his name, he’s basically the most dangerous grappler in UFC history.
Can he get Poirier to the ground and submit him? ‘The Diamond’ has excellent wrestling, but Oliveira’s takedowns have improved dramatically and more to the point, he’s also deadly from the bottom too.
Given that we saw Poirier worked over on the mat by Khabib in his last loss, it’s worth a guess that Oliveira can do something similar and win this hugely unpredictable fight by submission.
The Pick: Oliveira via second-round submission
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