Alexander Volkanovski delivered on his promise to put on an even more dominant performance against Diego Lopes in their rematch at UFC 325 than he did when they first met 10 months ago.
From the start,
Volkanovski frustrated Lopes with his movement and then cracked him with perfectly timed counter shots in almost every exchange. Despite his best efforts to turn the tide, Lopes was seemingly always one step behind Volkanovski, who was fast, accurate and punishing with his strikes throughout the five-round fight en route to a lopsided unanimous decision win.
“His instincts were just much better,” UFC analyst Din Thomas said about Volkanovski’s performance during the UFC 325 post-fight show. “His ability to make the decisions, the proper decisions in real time or just much faster than Diego Lopes. When it came down to it, Diego Lopes was just lost.
“Alexander Volkanovski said that he was going to make this fight look easier than the first time. He absolutely did that. He was in complete control this entire fight.”
Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman gave Lopes credit for making a few changes from the first fight that gave him a better chance to win. Unfortunately for Lopes, Volkanovski was just as quick to make the necessary adjustments to shut him down and Lopes never built any real momentum during the fight.
“We talked about him having to be more aggressive and he just wasn’t able to get there,” Weidman said about Lopes. “Volkanovski was too quick, his footwork was too good. I like some of the adjustments he made early on. He was cutting off the ring really for the first time. In the first fight, Volkanovski was circling to his right the whole time so to deal with that, he went southpaw and started throwing kicks to the body. It seemed like it was working and he had a nice check right hook that he was going.
“But when Volkanovski really came in and started throwing combinations, you could see after he threw that right hook, he had nothing else offensively to throw.”
Robert Whittaker agreed with that assessment because as much as Lopes tried to change his fortune from the first fight to the second, he couldn’t find an answer to the problems Volkanovski presented.
“He wrote the blueprint,” Whittaker said about Volkanovski beating Lopes. “He did everything right. My biggest concern was will Diego make enough adjustments to have a better result the second time around? He made some adjustments. Not enough adjustments.”
The victory served as an eighth title defense in totality for Volkanovski, a two-time featherweight champion. That ties Jose Aldo for the most title defenses in the history of the UFC’s 145-pound division, so the debate about who is the best ever rages on.
For his part, Thomas believes Volkanovski has already secured his place in history — and it doesn’t hurt that Volkanovski holds a win over Aldo as well as a trio of victories against Max Holloway, another fighter routinely praised as one of the best featherweights in history.
“What we saw was a masterclass from the greatest featherweight of all time,” Thomas said. “It was all dictated really by his footwork and his ability to do what he wanted. Being able to slide in and out and being able to come back in and crash in with those punches over the top. Forcing Diego Lopes, somewhere in that second round, it’s like I’m going to try to shoot and what does Volkanovski do? No problem, I’ll put you in a guillotine.
“He’s so good at [making opponents fight his style]. You can’t get away from him. He’ll move you around the octagon in any way he wants.”
At 37, Volkanovski is one of the oldest champions on the UFC roster, but he doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon, especially after taking out another young, hungry challenger like Lopes.
“We are lucky to be able to watch the era of a guy like Alexander Volkanovski,” Thomas said.
With the win, Volkanovski obviously remains atop the featherweight division while he awaits word on his next opponent, which could come from a potential matchup between Movsar Evloev and Lerone Murphy — a fight rumored to possibly take place in the first quarter of 2026.
