Former UFC champion Charles Oliveira has warned Beneil Dariush to be ready for "war" this weekend.
Oliveira looks to put himself back into title contention against fellow top contender Dariush when they meet in the cage at UFC 289 on Saturday. The Brazilian lost out on the chance to reclaim his lightweight belt last October when he was tapped out by Khabib Nurmagomedov's protege Islam Makhachev in the second round.
'Do Bronx' will look to end the eight-fight unbeaten run of Dariush, who last fought on the undercard of Oliveira's title loss to Makhachev. “Sincerely, I’m hungry. I’m happy," Oliveira said of the fight. "Everybody that sees me sees how happy I am to be here. I’m going to go after this guy. I have all the respect in the world for him, but I’m going to go after him. I’m going to hunt him all the time. You want a war? War has come.”
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"You've got to be confident going into a fight like this. The one thing I have said many times is I'm an MMA fighter, a complete fighter, not a jiu-jitsu fighter. If he feels so confident about his jiu-jitsu, he has three rounds to try to bring it down to the ground and see what's going on."
Oliveira has admitted to not watching back his defeat to Makhachev as he believes a different version of him showed up against the Russian on the night. Makhachev has since gone on to defend his belt against Alexander Volkanovski as he won a decision against the featherweight champion in February.
“Never in my life. I’ve never had that feeling," Oliveria said of his last fight. "For all of you that are real fans of mine, that admire what I do, did you see 10 per cent of me in there at all? I wasn’t there. Sometimes you have no way of explaining, you don’t understand why things are happening. There’s a purpose for things happening or not happening, but I wasn’t there.”
“I don’t know. It just wasn’t me. How many times have you seen me get knocked down and get back up? How many times have you seen me bullied and come back? He is a great fighter, all respect to him. He’s a warrior, but I have not watched it, I’m not going to watch it. Simply, it wasn’t me.”
