A day after the UFC announced Diego Lopes vs. Jean Silva as the main event of Noche UFC 3 on Sept. 13, Silva went back to a week-old tweet from Lopes to suggest a bet. Lopes was working on his wrestling in Oklahoma, and Silva suggested a bet.
“I bet my purse that you don’t take me down,” Silva wrote in Portuguese. “Go on, keep lying to yourself.”
Lopes, who went two for five in takedown attempts over seven UFC bouts — winning
five of those matches —, reacted to the offer in a conversation with MMA Fighting.
“I didn’t even see that,” Lopes said with a laugh. “I’m only seeing this message two months later [laughs].”
Silva is 5-0 with five finishes in the UFC, including a recent second-round submission over Bryce Mitchell, and has given away four takedowns in 28 attempts by his UFC opponents.
“Brother, leave him with his money,” Lopes laughed. “I don’t want to make him have no money. Leave him with his money because I think he will need the money, right?”
Lopes has shown great jiu-jitsu skills and knockout power so far in the UFC, losing only to top-ranked contender Movsar Evloev — on short notice — and a UFC title clash with Alexander Volkanovski. All that, he said, without training wrestling until January 2025.
“When I went there [to Oklahoma], it wasn’t my idea to learn wrestling for MMA,” Lopes said. “Every time I learn a new sport or something new, I like to learn it from scratch. I don’t like to adapt anything to my sport, you know? I was in a gym where everybody was All-Americans, world champions, Pan-American champions, Olympic athletes. and that changes your head completely. What I did, more than anything, was learn from zero what wrestling is all about.”
“When I went there to learn wrestling they said, ‘Oh, you have a good base,’” he continued. “Of course, because of jiu-jitsu, but I didn’t want to just have a good base and make it stronger. I wanted to learn more things. When I went there in January, that was before they announced the Volk fight. I didn’t even know I was going to fight him. My goal was to learn and make my takedown defense better, because I don’t have good takedown defense, but I’m getting better at it. In the Volk fight, of the 11 takedowns he tried, I defended 10.”
When they meet inside the cage on Sept. 13 in San Antonio, Texas, Lopes expects the Fighting Nerds talent to keep it on the feet instead of testing his wrestling abilities.
“I don’t think he will try to take me down, man,” Lopes laughed. “Not underestimating him or any of that. He might try — but like you said, if he takes me down, I have no problem being on the bottom. But I don’t think he will do that. He won’t try to take me down. I’ll be really surprised if he tries to take me down.
“I’m only seeing this [bet] comment now because you’re showing me,” he continued. “Cool. Let him be, man. I didn’t go [to Oklahoma] to learn takedowns or anything specific for this fight. I went there to improve myself, to learn true wrestling. I didn’t go there to learn takedowns for MMA or any of that. Of all my fights, people see that I have a good ground game, I know how to submit people.”
