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#4 UFC Fight Night 74 – Max Holloway vs Charles Oliveira
It came as a bit of a surprise when the UFC booked a Featherweight clash between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira as the headliner for Fight Night 74 – their debut in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – given neither man had been that high up the card before, but it also sounded like a hell of a fight on paper.
Holloway had won his last 6 fights and had only gone the distance in one of them, while Oliveira was on a 4-fight streak including 3 tapouts. The winner would surely vault themselves into title contention – unless something bizarre happened, of course.
The two men exchanged some early strikes before Oliveira attempted a takedown, and when Holloway was able to defend, the Brazilian attempted to pull guard. Holloway was having none of that and stood back up – only for Oliveira to collapse to his back, clutching his neck. Referee Herb Dean was then forced to stop the fight, awarding a strange and anticlimactic TKO to Holloway.
To say this was a bad ending would be an understatement; to that point, the show had been filled with fun brawls like Patrick Cote vs. Josh Burkman and Francisco Trinaldo vs. Chad Laprise, but the main event basically ruined everything.
As for Oliveira? Early reports suggested that he’d somehow torn his esophagus, but eventually, it was reported that he had no major throat injuries and that the pain was caused by a minor neck injury that he’d suffered during his training camp.
