One of these two combatants will leave UFC 300 with a guaranteed title shot.
That’s according to UFC CEO Dana White, who recently told the combat sports community that former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira and red-hot Russian bruiser Arman Tsarukyan will collide in a No. 1 contender fight on Sat., April 13, 2024 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
That means reigning champion Islam Makhachev will either compete in March in Saudi Arabia against an opponent to be named, or simply wait for the winner of Oliveira vs. Tsarukyan as he prepares to take several weeks off for Ramadan.
Oliveira (34-9, 1 NC) dropped the strap to Makhachev in the UFC 280 headliner back in late 2022. After disposing of Beneil Dariush at UFC 289 to get himself back into the lightweight title hunt, a late cut in training camp bounced “Do Bronx’ from his Makhachev rematch at UFC 294.
The champion went on to retain by knocking out late-replacement Alex Volkanovski.
Tsarukyan (21-3) dropped a decision to Makhachev in his UFC debut back in early 2019. In the years that followed, “Ahalkalakets” compiled an 8-1 record, which includes his first-round destruction of the aforementioned Dariush at UFC Austin just last month. That performance was good enough to land Tsarukyan at No. 4 in the official lightweight rankings.
UFC 300 does not yet have a main event; however, several bookings have recently been made official. Among them are Jiri Prochazka vs. Aleksandar Rakic (light heavyweight), Calvin Kattar vs. Aljamain Sterling (featherweight), and Cody Brundage vs. Bo Nickal (middleweight).
Stay tuned for more UFC 300 fight card announcements in the coming weeks.