UFC 269: At T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas

By: Julio Olmo

After what has been a very trying year, the UFC lightweight division is set to close the year 2021 with a bang.

Lightweight champion Charles Oliveira will defend his belt against consensus top lightweight Dustin Poirier in the main event of UFC 269 on Saturday night.

The fight will settle any lingering debate over who controls the 155-pound division in the wake of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s October 2020 retirement.

Oliveira went on to capture the vacant championship while Poirier took on a pair of massive fights with former featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor, winning both.

Oliveira will now look to prove his title represents truly being the best lightweight on the planet when he takes on the man many feel truly deserves the crown.

There’s another title fight set for the card, with all-time women’s MMA great Amanda Nunes defending her bantamweight title against Julianna Pena.

Nunes is looking to continue her incredible run of dominance that has allowed her to capture titles in two weight classes while beating almost every big-name fighter in the history of both featherweight and bantamweight divisions.

Nunes (21-4) has become such a dominant force as both bantamweight and featherweight champion that her fights are put together on the accepted idea that her opponent has little hope of pulling out a victory.

She has defeated every woman to ever hold either of the titles she now claims and has won 12 consecutive fights.

Nunes holds huge victories over Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate and Cris Cyborg, in addition to a pair of wins over current women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko.

Pena (10-4) is in the role of “next woman up” for the champion. She is in the challenger role despite a 2-2 record in her four most recent fights. Both losses have come via submission and against women Nunes has already conquered (Germaine de Randamie and Shevchenko).

Still, Pena is a dangerous fighter and has only gone to the scorecards four times in her 14 career fights.

Oliveira (31-8) completed an unlikely rise to lightweight champion in May, scoring a comeback knockout of Michael Chandler in the second round. Prior to stopping Chandler, Oliveira was nearly finished in the first round but found a way to win, as he has done in his last nine fights. Oliveira holds the all-time record for submission victories in the UFC and is also a dangerous striker. He has fought in the UFC since 2010, having stretches of success and failure at both lightweight and featherweight. But a return to the lightweight division in 2017 set him off on his recent run of success, which includes eight Performance of the Night bonuses in a 10-fight span

Poirier (28-6) is also a longtime UFC veteran, having competed for the promotion since 2011. The Louisiana native is 8-1 since 2017, with the lone loss in that stretch came after winning the interim lightweight title and attempting to unify the title against then-champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. Many felt Poirier was a lock to take over the division after Nurmagomedov’s retirement, but he pursued a pair of huge-money fights with Conor McGregor. Poirier beat McGregor twice and now is ready to attempt to add a stint as undisputed champion to his already-impressive resume.

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