Not much went right for Vinicius Oliveira on Saturday in Las Vegas.
In his first UFC main event, the bantamweight prospect was shut down by Mario Bautista (17-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) with relative ease. Oliveira (23-4 MMA, 4-1 UFC) tapped to a rear-naked choke in the second round. The loss was his first in the UFC after a 4-0 start.
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After the fight, Oliveira posted a video on social media to look back on the loss. In his native Portuguese, the 32-year-old Brazilian said he had injuries during his training camp that he attributed to his loss.
But, per a translation from his text, Oliveira said he’ll bounce back.
“Well, earthlings, things went wrong again,” Oliveira posted. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve lost in my life, but every time I’ve gotten up and moved on. I’m sad for my team and for everyone who was cheering for me, but anyway, no sad stories, let’s move on to another journey. I did the impossible, I dropped below 84kg again, I had 3 injuries during this fight camp: a rotator cuff injury, a meniscus injury, and also a fracture in my arm, but I’m still the best, the terror has a name! Yeeeeeeah!”
Oliveira got into the UFC through DWCS in September 2023. His promotional debut was a flying-knee knockout of Bernardo Sopaj that netted him a double bonus for Performance of the Night and Fight of the Night a little less than two years ago.
He followed that win up with wins over high-profile bantamweights Ricky Simon and Said Nurmagomedov, the latter of which won another Fight of the Night bonus. And in July 2025, he made it four straight, and three straight decisions, when he outworked Kyler Phillips.
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A win over Bautista would have had Oliveira clamoring to be in the title mix. Instead, Bautista got back on track after a decision loss to former title challenger Umar Nurmagomedov this past October and he now has won nine of his past 10 – including wins over former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and ex-Bellator champ Patchy Mix.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Vinicius Oliveira: I had three injuries for UFC Fight Night 266 loss
