News broke Friday (Sept. 19, 2025) that Rafael Fiziev was off UFC Rio with an injury, leaving main event fighter Charles Oliveira without a dance partner. The UFC has vowed to keep “Do Bronx” on the card, but against who?
There’s been a lot of movement over the past 24 hours, with plenty of lightweight contenders coming out of the woodwork offering to fill in for Fiziev. At the top of the list is No. 8 ranked Mateusz Gamrot, who is coming off a one-sided decision win over L’udovit Klein back in May.
“I’m ready and hungry to jump in!!” Gamrot wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Come on UFC.”
On Saturday he added an Instagram story showing him boarding a plane to the United States, setting off a whole lot of speculation that he was the man who got the call … but that’s all conjecture.
There’s also No. 11 ranked Renato Moicano, who is well known for accepting late notice fights.
“It’s not an easy fight and it wouldn’t be the camp I need,” Moicano said on his YouTube channel. “But a fight against Charles in the main event in Brazil would be impossible to say no to.”
One fighter who isn’t interested is No. 13 ranked Benoit Saint Denis. BSD just beat Mauricio Ruffy in the co-main event of UFC Paris, but doesn’t want to risk his two-fight win streak jumping into a Oliveira fight unprepared.
“There will be no BSD vs. Oliveira in October,” Saint Denis’ manager Guillaume Peltier wrote on Instagram. “We respect Oliveira far too much to take him on like this. A fight of this magnitude must be prepared.”
For those hoping for No. 6 ranked Dan Hooker to step in, he’s been out of consideration since the original round of matchmaking that led to Oliveira vs. Fiziev. “The Hangman” won’t be cleared to return from a hand surgery until November, a month after UFC Rio.
For his part, Charles Oliveira sounds ready to fight anybody put in front of him. If anything, he’s upset that the best fighters are still avoidin him in Rio.
“Don’t fall for that bulls–t these guys say, ‘Oh, I’ll fight him, I’ll fight him!'” Oliveira said on Instagram. “Because the UFC is offering, and they’re all saying, ‘There’s no time to make weight,’ ‘I can’t do it.'”
“So forget about posting on the internet to gain hype. Forget it, because it’s getting pathetic. I saw someone posting something, someone else saying something. But when the UFC calls, what do you say? ‘I can’t. I got a stomach ache, I broke my finger, I hurt my hand.'”
“So stop this nonsense, it’s pathetic,” Oliveira concluded. “I want to fight at UFC Rio. I asked for this fight. My opponent got injured, then about 10 others showed up saying they’d accept. So far, every time the UFC calls, they say it’s not possible. Pathetic. You want to be famous? Go do something else. Don’t keep saying you want to fight me when that’s a lie.”
