Israel Adesanya: Charles Oliveira 'gets touched too much,' Ilia Topuria knocks him out

USA Today

4 hours ago

Israel Adesanya is concerned with Charles Oliveira's striking defense against Ilia Topuria.
Oliveira (35-10 MMA, 23-10 UFC) meets Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) for the vacant lightweight title in Saturday's UFC 317 main event (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Oliveira has been knocked down in his title fights against Michael Chandler, Dustin Poirier, and Justin Gaethje before rallying to get the finish. Adesanya isn't sure "Do Bronx" survives the power of Topuria, who's coming off back-to-back knockouts of Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway.
"To beat two of the greatest featherweights of all time, back-to-back, it's hard to doubt a guy like that again," Adesanya said of Topuria on his YouTube channel. "(Oliveira) gets caught too much for my liking, that's the thing. If he wants to go forward straight away, he's going to get caught. I just see Ilia as too sharp with the hands, man. He's too sharp with the hands."
Adesanya would like to see Oliveira mix in his grappling to help open up his striking.
"Charles needs to feint or just find a way to cause doubt in Ilia's mind, and also good footwork, because I don't think he's going to be moving forward for long," Adesanya said. "He's going to have to move backwards, and when that happens, he has to use good footwork to get back to the center, and then attack from there.
"(He needs to) shoot sometimes and then break away. Find a way to disengage, but just get that in his mind. I don't want to doubt Charles because he's illuminated by a great power, and he's just proven himself over and over again. ... Let's see what the grappling is about. Test it, because no one's tested Topuria's grappling quite well yet."
The former UFC middleweight champion ultimately picked Topuria to win.
"In this fight, I'm going to go Ilia Topuria, and I'm going to go by knockout," Adesanya said. "I don't know what round, but for me it's just because Charles, he gets touched too much for my liking. I just think Ilia will find the shot, I think pretty early if Charles decides to just be aggressive like he says and push forward. And then if he gets hurt, Ilia will find that shot again."