The BMF belt is officially up for grabs. Or more accurately, it’s up for defending, as Charles Oliveira puts his title on the line against Diego Lopes in the UFC 335 main event in Las Vegas. Yes, the matchup that had been floating around in rumor land is finally real.

Oliveira vs. Lopes was confirmed during the UFC 332 broadcast and later made official by the promotion, with the two lightweight stars set to throw down on December 12 at T-Mobile Arena. And ‘Do Bronx’ isn’t exactly walking into this one empty-handed.

The former lightweight champ claimed the BMF title by beating Max Holloway via unanimous decision at UFC 326 in March, and now he’s making the first defense of the wildest belt in the UFC.

With 37 wins, 25 UFC victories, and an absurd resume that includes the most finishes, submissions, and bonuses in UFC history, the Brazilian still has plenty of fights left in him.

And Charles Oliveira has a little extra motivation heading into this one. The BMF champ was hit with a pretty wild surprise in the UFC’s Meta pound-for-pound rankings last month, getting booted completely out of the top 15 despite still sitting at No. 3 in the lightweight rankings.

The shake-up came after UFC 331 and Tom Aspinall’s heavyweight title vacancy, but the Brazilian’s disappearance was hard to miss. After all, his last outing was a big statement win over Max Holloway to capture the BMF belt, so seeing him suddenly vanish from the P4P list raised plenty of eyebrows.

Now, with Diego Lopes standing across from him, the 36-year-old has the perfect chance to make another statement. A big win could put ‘Do Bronx’ right back in the pound-for-pound conversation—and give the rankings committee something to think about.

Charles Oliveira is also getting another shot at putting one of the toughest lessons of his career into practice. When he faced Ilia Topuria, ‘Do Bronx’ admitted he got a little too comfortable relying on his hands instead of hunting for grappling opportunities early.

‘El Matador’ wasted no time making him regret it, catching the 36-year-old in the opening round and handing him a brutal loss.

“I trusted my hand,” Oliveira admitted while looking back on the fight. “I believed my hand was going to land, and everyone did what they’re doing now; everyone laughed. But I learned from that mistake.”

The loss clearly stuck with him. As he put it, he learned from that mistake, and now he’ll get another chance to show it against Lopes.

It is worth noting that Charles Oliveira was originally supposed to run it back with Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 331 in September, but those plans fell apart after the tragic death of his friend and teammate, Allan Nascimento.

Now the fighter from the favelas gets a completely different kind of problem to deal with in Diego Lopes. The 31-year-old is moving up to 155 pounds for the first time, and he’s not doing it for a tune-up fight. The former two-time featherweight title challenger is jumping straight into a BMF title fight and his first shot at UFC gold.

Diego Lopes also enters with some serious momentum after stopping Steve Garcia with a second-round TKO at UFC Freedom 250 in June. And those three losses in his UFC run so far? They’re hardly anything to shrug at.

Lopes fell to Movsar Evloev in his short-notice UFC debut before coming up short twice against Alexander Volkanovski in featherweight title fights. Now the Brazilian gets a fresh start at lightweight and a chance to make one hell of an entrance.

Beat Charles Oliveira, and Diego Lopes walks away with UFC gold while instantly announcing himself as a problem at 155 pounds.

And to make things more interesting for fight fans, the chaos doesn’t stop in the main event as more banger fights have been announced for UFC 335.

Alex Pereira, Joe Pyfer, and Bo Nickal add more firepower to the Charles Oliveira-led UFC 335

The UFC 335 co-main event is bringing another heavyweight war, with Alex Pereira taking on Sergei Pavlovich in a five-round showdown. UFC CEO Dana White confirmed the matchup during Nina Drama’s livestream at UFC 332, setting up Pereira for just his second appearance at heavyweight.

‘Poatan’ is looking to bounce back after coming up short against Ciryl Gane in an interim heavyweight title fight at UFC Freedom 250.

Pavlovich, meanwhile, is rolling. The Russian heavyweight has won three straight and is coming off a ridiculously quick finish of Tallison Teixeira, stopping him in under a minute back in May.

So yeah, expect things to get violent pretty damn fast when these two heavyweight hitters meet.

There’s plenty more firepower on the card, too. Joe Pyfer and Bo Nickal are set to collide in a big middleweight showdown, and Nickal is about to find out just how much tougher things get at the top. He’ll be taking on the No. 4-ranked middleweight contender in what is easily one of the biggest tests of his UFC run so far.

Pyfer has been on a tear since suffering the only UFC loss of his career, winning five straight and most recently putting away former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya at UFC Seattle in March. Nickal, meanwhile, is coming off a stoppage win over Kyle Daukaus at UFC Freedom 250.

And before this latest batch of announcements, UFC 335 already had one fight locked in, with former flyweight champion Brandon Moreno set to take on Charles Johnson in Las Vegas.

Now add Charles Oliveira vs. Diego Lopes, Alex Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich, and Joe Pyfer vs. Bo Nickal to the mix, and this card has gone from promising to absolutely stacked.

UFC 335 is definitely shaping up to be one of the promotion’s biggest events of the year, and there’s still plenty of room for more madness.