Diego Lopes gained valuable experience from his first fight against Alexander Volkanovski.
Lopes (27-7 MMA, 6-2 UFC) came up short on the scorecards against Volkanovski (27-4 MMA, 14-3 UFC) when they fought for the vacant featherweight title at UFC 314 last April. Prior to that matchup, Lopes had been on a tear at 145 pounds, winning five fights in a row.
After returning to the win column with a stoppage victory over Jean Silva at UFC Noche last September, Lopes has now been granted another shot at Volkanovski. The pair are set to meet in the main event of UFC 325 in Sydney, Australia, on January 31, and the Brazilian says the experience he gained from their first meeting has been invaluable.
“I learned a lot,” Lopes told Main Event TV. “When I had the fight with Volk in April, I had this little bit (of) ego. It was like, ‘I'm having a great run (of) straight wins, I think I don't need to fix many things in my training camp. I think everything is good, you know?’ But after the fight, I (saw that) many things were not good in my training camp.
“So after (that) fight, I fixed many things, you know? Now I feel much better. I put (together) one private gym only for me and my team. No distractions, no people coming to the gym for asking me for things, photos, videos. I have the cage now too. So yeah, now it's like I have it. I learned a lesson for this fight.”
The win over Silva marked the fourth stoppage victory of Lopes’ short UFC career, and with UFC 325 taking place on his opponent’s home turf, he believes he may need to add Volkanovski’s name to that list.
“I think I'm knocking him out,” Lopes responde when asked for a prediction. “Bro, I'm fighting (in) territory enemy, you know? I need to finish this fight. It's like submission, knockout, complete domination (over) five rounds. This is my goal. My goal is (to) finish him.”
