There’s never been a fighter to endure a longer road to a UFC title than Charles Oliveira. That’s a fact after the Brazilian claimed the vacant lightweight belt with a second-round TKO of Michael Chandler.

Oliveira (31-8 MMA, 19-8 UFC) has experienced a winding, twisting story since making his octagon debut in August 2010. His talent was always evident, but he failed to put it together in some key fights up until this current run, which has seen him reach championship form. Oliveira turned a corner, and since then he’s been a nearly unstoppable force en route to winning gold.

He’s quite obviously not flawless, as was clear in his rough first round. He proved the skeptics of his heart wrong, though, and powered through adversity to find the opening to put Chandler away. It was truly impressive, and a testament that we shouldn’t be too quick to write the final book on the career of top prospects just because of early career inconsistency.

This isn’t some late-career, fairytale moment a la Michael Bisping, either. Yes, Oliveira needed 28 bouts with the promotion to get his hands on the belt, but he’s still only 31. It’s possible we haven’t even seen the final form of “Do Bronx,” and that should be a big concern to everyone at 155 pounds.

Khabib Nurmagomedov’s departure from the UFC continues to cast a shadow over the lightweight division, and thus Oliveira’s title reign. Moreover, Dustin Poirier is considered by many to be the top man in the weight class, but he opted not to fight on this night in lieu of a Conor McGregor trilogy bout.

Nevertheless, there are few more deserving people to try to move things forward than Oliveira, If he’s able to put together a solid title reign that could include challengers such as Poirier, McGregor and Justin Gaethje, he’s going to forge a legacy that will leave vanquish thoughts about the way in which Nurmagomedov left the division behind.

Michael Chandler said coming in to his title clash with Oliveira that the stars seemed to be perfectly aligned to get his hands on that belt. It was a destiny-like scenario for him to land in this position one fight into his UFC tenure after all the questions about his real place at 155 pounds through years in Bellator. His opportunity was perfectly teed up.

As we’ve seen so many times in this sport, though, destiny doesn’t always work out. More often than not, in fact, it seems a cruel dosage of reality is what’s dished out.

Chandler could almost touch the belt when he hurt Oliveira in the first round, but he couldn’t capitalize. And as fate would have it, he got knocked out just moments later to start the second round. It was a tough pill to swallow, but also not a loss that determined Chandler doesn’t belong. If anything, it proved he very much deserved to be there.

The question now, however, revolves around whether he can live up to his post-fight vow to get back in this position and make good on it. At 35 years old, it’ll take a lot of good fortune to remake these circumstances.

Lightweight is an incredibly deep division where anyone in the top 10 can win on a given day. The next one will be a telling gauge on whether Chandler’s connection to the UFC title will always be a “what if,” or if he can prove this moment to just be a bump in the road.

The worst fear for any Tony Ferguson fan came to life when he was dominated for three straight rounds by Beneil Dariush, extending the former interim UFC lightweight champion’s losing skid to three and putting his future in question.

It’s not just that Ferguson (25-6 MMA, 15-4 UFC) lost to Dariush, who deserves credit for executing a solid and disciplined game plan for the lopsided unanimous decision. It’s that “El Cucuy” was unable to mount any offense or put his opponent in danger over the course of 15 minutes.

UFC president Dana White didn’t boot Ferguson out the door at the post-fight press conference, but he also didn’t give a promising outlook on his future. He praised Ferguson’s ridiculous toughness for powering through Dariush’s heel-hook attempt and some other bad spots, but at 37 and with three losses in a row, it’s not a great sign when the best thing people can say about your fighting is that you’re good at surviving getting beat up.

That’s where Ferguson finds himself. After the losses to Oliveira and Justin Gaethje, he went back to the drawing board and tried to change things up by training with Freddie Roach and a more structured camp, but it did not show itself in the performance.

The crowd reaction to Ferguson on fight night was as strong as ever, but popularity will only carry him so far at this stage of his career. In the coming weeks, he’ll have to face some difficult questions about where he stands in the sport and what his goals are at this point.

It was sad to see Ronaldo Souza’s losing skid extended to four in the manner it was, with the Brazilian legend getting his arm broken by Andre Muniz in gruesome fashion in the opening round of their middleweight bout.

This felt like a must-win scenario for “Jacare,” even if he lost by something as close as a split decision. But for him to get his arm snapped like that and be submitted for the first time in his MMA career? It paints an ugly picture for the 41-year-old Souza (26-10 MMA, 9-7 UFC).

It remains to be seen how significant Souza’s injury ultimately ends up being. Perhaps he’ll have a perfect recovery and look to compete again before the year is over, but given his record in recent years, will he even have a spot on the UFC roster waiting for him?

Andrea Lee was in a weird spot coming into her fight with Antonina Shevchenko, having lost three consecutive bouts in the women’s flyweight division and in desperate need of a victory.

On the surface, Lee (12-5 MMA, 4-3 UFC) has the look, personality and skills to be very marketable for the UFC. But winning becomes essential along the way, and she hadn’t gotten one on her record since July 2019.

That’s until she tapped Shevchenko out in the second round to conclude a wild affair. Lee showed how bad she wanted it by not giving up on her submission attempt until she had her opponent tap. It was her first finish in the UFC and one that quite possibly saved her spot on the roster.

The performance could serve as something bigger for “KGB,” too. She needed a major confidence booster, and this result might be the one to lead to her putting everything together inside the octagon to make a run at the top.