UFC 325 went down last Saturday (Jan. 31, 2026) inside Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, Australia, leaving several fighters feeling the post-fight blues. Among them was Tai Tuivasa, who suffered his sixth straight
defeat after coming up short on the judges scorecards against Tallison Teixeira.
And Dan Hooker, who was thoroughly dominated by Benoit Saint Denis before he was stopped via technical knockout (TKO) in the second round (see it again here). But which fighter is suffering from the worst post-fight hangover, now a few days removed from the show?
Diego Lopes.
Coming into his championship rematch against Alexander Volkanovski, Lopes heard all of the chatter that he wasn’t deserving of another chance to win UFC gold since “The Great” had just defeated him handily 10 months prior. Furthermore, Lopes only secured one win since then, so it’s not like he went on a great run to justify another title fight. Nevertheless, the Mexican-born fighter wasn’t about to let the chance pass him by.
Unfortunately for Lopes the outcome was pretty much the same as the first because “The Great” once again proved to be too much for him. mixing up his well-rounded arsenal to stifle anything Lopes planned to offer and execute. In the end, Volkanovski won another unanimous decision to retain his strap and put the Mexican-born combatant in his rear-view mirror.
For Lopes, the loss proved to be painful in more ways than one because aside from going home with a tough “L,” he also suffered two broken feet. Nevertheless, he is looking on the bright side as best he can.
“Together until the end, through thick and thin,” he said afterward about his team. “We’ve fallen and gotten back up time and time again. So I’m just grateful that you’re with me on this journey.”
As a result of the defeat, Lopes will not only have a long road to recovery physically, but he will have to mentally prepare himself that a title fight will likely not be coming again anytime soon. The Featherweight division is loaded with sharks chomping at the bit for their shot, so Lopes will have to be perfect for a while if he wants to climb up the ladder again.
As far as what could be next for him, by the time he returns to action from his injuries the landscape at 145 pounds will change drastically. He could be out for the most part of this year, so it’s pretty hard to pinpoint who could be waiting for him when he returns. That said, there are a lot of juicy matchups he can look ahead to, but the one I would love for him to get is a much-anticipated showdown against Yair Rodriguez.
The two men have a bitter rivalry and there were talks of a possible fight between the two, though it never came to be. Like Lopes, Rodriguez wasn’t able to solve the Volkanovski puzzle, but he did manage to snap his two-fight skid by defeating Patricio Pitbull at UFC 314.
Do you have any suggestions?
Check out more news and reactions from UFC 325 here.
