Diego Lopes came up short in his first attempt to win the UFC featherweight title in April 2025, losing a decision against Alexander Volkanovski in Miami, but he’s back a changed athlete for his championship rematch at UFC 325 on Jan. 31.
Lopes will challenge “The Great” in the main event of UFC’s second card of the year in Sydney, Australia, and told MMA Fighting he has learned valuable lessons from the biggest fight of his career. The main one, Lopes explained, has nothing to do with actual fighting
techniques.
“I think it was the experience and the pressure of having my first five-round fight, my first title fight,” Lopes said. “My first pay-per-view event, being the main event, and a lot of things like that. I felt like I had that ego where, when you’re winning, you feel no need to change anything in your camp. I think I had that ego of, ‘No, I’m on a five-fight win streak, I’m good, I don’t need to change anything, I think we’re fine.’ After the fight happened and I ended up losing, a lot changed. I realized a lot of things needed to improve, and those were the things we started adapting little by little.”
“I now have a private gym just for me and my team, just for us to train without any distractions — no one comes into the gym except us, just to train,” he continued. “And also the connection with my team got better. We started to click more and accept everyone’s opinion on the team. Each person has their specific point, everyone agrees, and I think that also makes us much more relaxed for any situation after a fight, or simply makes us ready for any situation before a fight.”
Technique-wise, however, Lopes has added more tools to his arsenal since losing to Volkanovski, mainly wrestling training in Oklahoma. He didn’t need that aspect of the game in his most recent victory, a knockout over Jean Silva in a UFC main event in September, but could be helpful this weekend in Australia.
“I never really pursued wrestling specifically to improve for a particular fight,” Lopes said. “It’s genuinely been about improving as an athlete and as a person, you know? Like, I don’t go into a wrestling gym and tell the coach, ‘Help me defend this takedown this way for MMA.’ And they don’t try to teach me MMA-specific things either, you know? They teach me real wrestling. And that’s given me a lot of confidence too because I know that when it goes to the ground, in the movement and the scrambles, I can be confident that I can win any scramble against those guys. And it definitely gives me even more confidence knowing that I can keep wrestling, or do jiu-jitsu, or stay in the grappling exchanges without any problems.
“One of the things wrestling gives you is that mindset of never stopping, never stopping, never stopping. I think that helps me a lot, you know? And of course, it also gives me confidence for this fight against Volkanovski. If I have the opportunity to take him down, I will. It’s definitely a set of weapons that I’ve been improving for myself, you know?”
The Brazilian featherweight said he “lost count” how many times he has rewatched the first Volkanovski bout, and admits he was surprised by his opponent’s strategy. Lopes will rematch “The Great” nine months later, this time in enemy territory, and vows to be ready for whatever comes from the blue corner.
“We expected Volkanovski to be more in front of us In the first fight, just switching stances, and we never expected him to move so much to my left side,” Lopes said. “Nothing is new to me now. Anything he presents inside the octagon won’t be new to me. It’s just about going in there and having fun, right?”
“I think he’s going to try to apply more pressure and try to finish the fight quickly,” he added. “He’s been saying that too, but I think when he sees that it’s not going to work, he’ll end up going back to the plan he had in the first fight, which is something we’re already expecting. I already know what to expect from him.”
