Charles Oliveira details the injury that forced him out of next month’s UFC 288 co-main event

Former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira has revealed why he’s pulled out of UFC 288.

‘Do Bronx’ has been out of the cage since his clash with Islam Makhachev at UFC 280 last October. While the Brazilian wasn’t the champion heading into the contest, he was the division’s most recent titleholder. Last May, Oliveira was stripped of his lightweight gold for missing weight against Justin Gaethje.

However, none of that mattered when it came time for the UFC 280 main event. Makhachev wound up dominating Oliveira en route to a second-round submission victory, winning the vacant title in the process. Furthermore, the defeat snapped the former titleholder’s historic 11-fight winning streak.

Following the fight, Charles Oliveira spoke about his want for a fast turnaround. The Brazilian got that, in a May booking with Beneil Dariush for UFC 288. However, late last week, Oliveira pulled out of the lightweight clash, citing an unspecified injury. The two were later rebooked for UFC 289 the following month.

Nonetheless, the former champion discussed the injury in a recent Instagram video. There, Oliveira revealed that he got injured while wrestling, but he’s not worried. The Brazilian informed fans that he’s expecting to return to training soon, ahead of his clash in June with Dariush.

(via Zuffa LLC)

Charles Oliveira discusses UFC 288 withdrawal 

“I wasn’t able to train, I got injured during wrestling practice,” Oliveira stated. “I tried to train, I tried to do everything I could but we couldn’t, so we pulled out of the fight. [Fighting at UFC 288] would be great because I would be fighting on the same night of two teammates, ‘Willycat’ [Daniel Santos] and Rolando [Bedoya], but God knows all things. We’ll continue working and stay focused.” (h/t MMA Fighting)

He continued, “I have to stay [away from training] for a few days so I can go back to training soon, and then we’ll reschedule the fight. I’ll be back to training pretty soon. That’s it, I had a small injury and decided to pull out so I wouldn’t fight injured. We’ve made that mistake once and I didn’t want to do it again. … We’re taking one step back so we can take one, two, three steps forward soon.”