Photo via MMAFighting.com
Charles Oliveira injured, Islam Makhachev will now face Alexander Volkanovski in rematch at UFC 294
With just 11 days before the event is set to take place, the UFC 294 main event has seen a massive change. After challenger Charles Oliveira suffered an injury during sparring on Monday night, the promotion moved quickly to book a massive rematch for the lightweight title. The Overdogs Podcast was first to report that featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will be moving up to rematch champion Islam Makhachev in the main event of UFC 294.
Following Contender Series on Tuesday night, UFC President Dana White spoke about how the change came about, discussing the injury Oliveira suffered, and what led to them booking the rematch between Makhachev and Volkanovski.
Dana breaks down how we got to @MakhachevMMA vs @AlexVolkanovski 2 at #UFC294 next week!
[ @InAbuDhabi | #InAbuDhabi | @VisitAbuDhabi ] pic.twitter.com/Yd8hrdTZPW
— UFC (@ufc) October 11, 2023
“Yes, all of that is true. He, [Oliveira] Round 5 of sparring last night, before he’s supposed to jump on a plane today, splits his eyebrow wide open and had it stitched up last night, obviously can’t fly out. there with that. They [Oliveira’s team] didn’t call us, we would’ve had him go to a plastic surgeon that would’ve sewed it from the inside-out, get that thing done the right way.
These guys never call us like they should when something happens, they call us after they get it stitched up. But, on the flip side too, I can see him not wanting to risk it, getting a shot like this. The Volkanovski crew, him and Israel [Adesanya] these guys are absolute studs, he jumps in and accepts the fight.”
It will be a familiar face for lightweight champion Islam Makhachev who last fought against Volkanovski in one of the best fights of the year at UFC 284 in February. Makhachev was able to defend his title over the featherweight champion, picking up an unanimous decision victory in what was a highly-discussed and debated scorecard following their epic title fight.
Before his fight against Volkanovski, Makhachev had defeated Oliveira at UFC 280 in October of 2022 with a second-round submission, but Oliveira had worked himself back to title contention with a first-round victory over Beneil Dariush at UFC 289.
Alexander Volkanovski also got back into the win column following his fight against Makhachev as he went back down to 145-pounds and defended his title against interim champion Yair Rodriguez, who he beat by third-round TKO in July at UFC 290.
Here is the current lineup for UFC 294 which takes place in Abu Dhabi on ESPN+ PPV starting at 11:00 AM ET
- Islam Makhachev vs Alexander Volkanovski (lightweight championship)
- Paulo Costa vs Khamzat Chimaev
- MAgomed Ankalaev vs Johnny Walker
- Said Nurmagomedov vs Muin Gafurov
- Ikram Aliskerov vs Warlley Alves
- Tim Elliott vs Muhammad Mokaev
- Sedriques Dumas vs Abu Azaitar
- Jinh Yu Frey vs Victoria Dudakova
- Bruno Silva vs Sharabutdin Magomedov
- Mohammad Yahya vs Trevor Peek
- Anshul Jubli vs Mike Breeden
- David Basharat vs Victor Henry
- Nathaniel Wood vs Muhammad Naimov
