UFC Parts Ways With Oliveira

Longtime UFC welterweight action fighter Alex Oliveira was not going to break into the Top 10 anytime soon, but you would be hard pressed to find an MMA fighter who went for broke as many times as “Cowboy,” which may explain why the Brazilian brawler has five performance bonuses, including two “Fight of the Night” honors.

Unfortunately, he also had 10 losses — four of which came in consecutive fights from Oct. 2020 to March 2022. As a result, the promotion did not re-sign Oliveira after he completed the final fight on his UFC contract, a technical knockout loss to welterweight “Trailblazer” Kevin Holland at the UFC 272 pay-per-view (PPV) last month in Las Vegas.

“It’s an unfortunate perspective of the sport that a fighter like Alex Oliveira, who winning or losing always lets it all hang out, ends up not being renewed after a string of losses,” manager Alex Davis told MMA Junkie. “But that is the present moment in MMA. Alex thanks the UFC for the opportunities! At 34 and healthy, he is sure to rebuild and put on many more great fights for everyone!”

Oliveira is kind of like “Benny” the backstabbing taxi driver from Total Recall in that you can’t really have a “Cowboy” appearance without making a joke about how many kids he has to feed (11). Not surprisingly, the Brazilian is on the hunt for a new promotion and will likely make his return to the cage at some point later this year.