Matches to Make After UFC Fight Night 170

Charles
Oliveira extended his
Ultimate Fighting Championship record for submission wins to
14, as he dispatched “The Motown Phenom” with a guillotine choke in
the third round of their
UFC Fight Night 170 headliner on Saturday in Brasilia, Brazil.
Lee, who missed weight for the match by more than two pounds,
conceded defeat 28 seconds into Round 3 in what was his fourth
setback in six appearances.

Oliveira throughout the first five minutes set the tone with a
hyperactive submission game, alternating between leg locks and
triangle chokes while his counterpart attempted to navigate his
venomous guard. Lee bounced back in a far more competitive second
round, only to be undone by a brief moment of carelessness in the
third. He ducked into the choke, found himself hopelessly entangled
in the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt’s clutches and became the
fifth man to tap to an Oliveira guillotine inside the Octagon,
joining Jonathan
Brookins, Nik Lentz,
Myles
Jury and Clay
Guida.

In the aftermath of UFC Fight Night “Lee vs. Oliveira,” here are
five matches that ought to be made:

Charles
Oliveira vs. Islam
Makhachev–Alexander
Hernandez winner: Stock in Oliveira has soared to an
all-time high. He has rattled off seven consecutive victories, all
of them finishes, since his December 2017 loss to Paul Felder.
Though Oliveira fancies himself a title contender, he is stuck in a
veritable traffic jam at 155 pounds—a weight class where Tony
Ferguson, Dustin
Poirier, Conor
McGregor, Justin
Gaethje, Dan Hooker
and a host of others are all trying to keep pace with undefeated
champion Khabib
Nurmagomedov. That reality clouds his immediate future. With
that said, “Do Bronx” figures to draw another high-stakes
assignment the next time he steps in the cage. Makhachev will lock
horns with Hernandez at UFC 249 on April 18.

Gilbert
Burns vs. Stephen
Thompson: Burns has made it impossible to ignore him
in the welterweight division. The ascendant
Hard Knocks 365 representative bolstered his resume in stunning
fashion, as he wiped out 2007 Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission
Wrestling World Championships gold medalist Demian Maia
with punches in the first round of their co-main event. Burns drew
the curtain 2:34 into Round 1, becoming the first fighter to stop
Maia with strikes since Nate
Marquardt did the honors more than a decade ago. “Durinho” has
won five fights in a row and appears poised to make waves at 170
pounds. Thompson last appeared at UFC 244, where he took a
unanimous decision from Vicente
Luque on Nov. 2.

Nikita
Krylov vs. Volkan
Oezdemir: Despite his well-chronicled faults, Krylov
has enjoyed a surprising amount of success in his two stints with
the UFC. The 28-year-old Ukrainian rebounded from his contentious
Sept. 14 defeat to Glover
Teixeira and improved to 8-5 inside the Octagon, as he laid
claim to a unanimous decision over Johnny
Walker in their three-round light heavyweight showcase. Krylov
raced out to a lead, then held off the hard-charging Brazilian
across the final five minutes to win on points for the first time
in his 34-fight career. Oezdemir last competed at UFC Fight Night
165 in December, when he eked out a split verdict over Aleksandar
Rakic and continued to reestablish himself as a factor at 205
pounds.

Brandon
Moreno vs. Askar
Askarov: Moreno crept ever closer to title contention
at 125 pounds with his unanimous decision over Jussier
Formiga in the featured flyweight prelim. Scores were 30-27,
29-28 and 29-28, all for the 26-year-old Entram Gym upstart. Moreno
outstruck Formiga in all three rounds and managed to steer clear of
his lethal ground game, as he denied eight of his nine attempted
takedowns. While “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 24 graduate
continues to trend in the right direction, he still has work to do
if he wants to achieve his goal of becoming a UFC champion. A 2018
loss to Alexandre
Pantoja looms large, as does his Sept. 19 split draw with the
Askarov—an unbeaten Russian prospect who has since gone on to
defeat Tim
Elliott.

Renato
Carneiro vs. Michael
Johnson-Evan Dunham
winner: Carneiro bounced back from consecutive losses to
Jose
Aldo and Chan Sung
Jung at 145 pounds, as the Brazilian made a rousing return to
the lightweight division with quick submission of Damir
Hadzovic on the main card. Hadzovic, who had never before been
submitted, succumbed to a rear-naked choke 44 seconds into Round 1.
Operating out of the star-studded
American Top Team camp in Coconut Creek, Florida, the
30-year-old Carneiro becomes an immediate person of interest at 155
pounds following his first sub-minute finish as a professional.
Johnson and Dunham are scheduled to collide at UFC Fight Night 173
on April 25.