Can Charlie Oliveira avoid Michael Chandler's power and implement his submission game?

In his last outing, Charles Oliveira had a pretty complete performance against Tony Ferguson. He slightly outlanded the veteran at distance (17 to 15), scored three takedowns, registered three submission attempted, landed 24 significant ground strikes and collected 11:39 on control time. A similar performance against Michael Chandler on Saturday would be overly impressive.

However, it is unlikely that Oliveira will have similar success in the wrestling department. Chandler was a strong collegiate wrestler at Missouri, and while he has done a lot of his best work with his striking in MMA, he has been able to wrestle when necessary.

Even if Oliveira is not able to score takedowns against Chandler, he will remain a submission threat. “Do Bronx” currently ranks eighth in takedowns plus submission attempts per 15 minutes. He is the only fighter in the top 10 of this metric to average more submission attempts per 15 minutes than takedowns.

Oliveira has the second most submission attempts in UFC history with 35. He is behind only Jim Miller who has registered 45 attempts. He has the most submission victories with 14, well above Demian Maia (10) who currently sits in second. Many of these submissions came from the bottom position or in scrambles. Even if he is not able to score takedowns against Chandler, he should remain a submission threat.

Chandler showed in his UFC debut that he has fight ending power. He now has 10 wins by KO/TKO through 27 professional fights. Oliveira has only been stopped via strikes three times in the UFC. Since falling against Paul Felder in 2017, Oliveira has absorbed 139 significant strikes without being finished, but he did suffer a knockdown against David Teymur in 2019.

Eight of Chandler’s 10 KO/TKO victories have come in the first round. In fights that have lasted longer than 15 minutes, he is only 3-3. Those six fights came against Benson Henderson, Will Brooks (twice), Eddie Alvarez (twice) and Brent Primus. In theory, Oliveira may have an advantage if he is able to drag the bout into the later rounds. However, he has never fought longer than 15 minutes in his UFC career. 

It is based on only one fight, but Chandler’s first round finish over Dan Hooker netted him a 6.00 knockdowns per 15 minute rate. That rate will normalize as he picks up more cage time. However, there is reason to believe he will continue to show striking power. So far in his career, he has averaged 0.63 KO/TKOs per 15 minutes. Obviously knockdowns and KO/TKOs are different, but Chandler’s KO/TKO rate is higher than the knockdown rate of 130 of the 175 ranked UFC fights. 

In his 27 UFC fights, Oliveira has only fought three fighters with a career knockdown rate higher than 0.63. He is 2-1 in these fights with victories over Jeremy Stephens and David Teymur as well as a first-round stoppage loss against Donald Cerrone. Even though Oliveira defeated Teymur, he did surrender a knockdown in that fight. 

Oliveira will likely need to find a way to avoid Chandler’s power early in this fight. The former Bellator champion might make that tough with his wrestling background. However, “Do Bronx” will still likely be able to make an impact with his grappling even if he can’t finish takedowns.