A former UFC welterweight title challenger has given his two cents on the upcoming title rematch between Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes. On Jan 31, the Australian and the Brazilian will run it back at UFC 325, live from Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney.
This will mark Alexander Volkanovski’s first title defense of his second reign at featherweight. The Great’ recaptured the 145-pound championship at UFC 314 by cruising to a unanimous decision win against Lopes.
Volkanovski wanted to defend his strap against undefeated top contenders, Movsar Evloev or Lerone Murphy. However, the UFC gave Lopes the title rematch after he secured a TKO victory last year at Noche UFC against Jean Silva.
Dan Hardy believes Diego Lopes needs to level up if he wants to dethrone Alexander Volkanovski
Recently, Dan Hardy gave his thoughts on the UFC 325 headliner. Hardy considers this title rematch to be an “unnecessary risk” for Volkanovski. During an interview with Submission Radio, he opined that fans have already seen the best version of ‘The Great,’ and now the latter is at the tail end of his career. However, Diego Lopes is still young and has all the time to develop his overall arsenal. The UFC veteran said:
“I think Lopes has got a good opportunity to change some things. There’s nothing like being in there with someone for a bunch of time to get a feel of how they move and what’s different to what you expected, what they did that was a surprise or even maybe, and this is a weird thing as well.
Sometimes you expect someone to do something, but then when it happens, it’s not how you anticipated it. I feel like there are a lot of people that expect Volkanovski to move a particular way. And like Aldo just could not figure Volkanovski’s movements out. It just looked like Aldo was like, ‘Hang on, this is not what I expected.’ I feel like sometimes having a bit of time with someone, then some time to dwell on it.”
Hardy added that Diego Lopes needs to level up, and this is his perfect opportunity:
“Remember, Lopes knows that he’s the one who really needs to raise his game to change something. It’s a really good opportunity. It’s not the kind of thing if I were Volk I’d be wanting to do, to have such a good performance and then to go, ‘Oh yeah, no, let’s just run it back.’ It seems like an unnecessary risk, really. But I think it’s a good opportunity for Lopes to show us quick evolution, and he’s at the right age in his career where we’re still going to see those good developments in his game. Whereas Volk is probably, we’ve probably seen the best version of him now.”
Check out Dan Hardy’s comments about Diego Lopes below (1:03):
In their first fight at UFC 314, most fans expected Diego Lopes to finish Alexander Volkanovski. But come fight night, the Australian delivered a calculated performance. Volkanovski stayed outside Lopes’ firing range for most of the bout. While the 31-year-old did land a few dangerous shots, they weren’t enough to send the then-former champion to the shadow realm.
Lopes later admitted he was overconfident, hunting for a fight-ending blow rather than maintaining consistent output. Ahead of the rematch, the challenger has set up a private gym for himself and his team to eliminate distractions and fully lock in.