Diego Lopes is a star at 145 pounds.
Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Featherweight division has seen a fluctuation of changes over the past year. Whether atop the mountain with the title now belonging to Ilia Topuria or names entering the mix from other divisions, the division is freshening up with intrigue.
At the forefront of the new contender wave is Mexico’s Lopes, who has won four consecutive fights since a hard-fought unanimous decision loss (25-6) in his promotional debut against the undefeated 18-0 Movsar Evloev. Lopes, 29, has jockeyed for Evloev rematch in the span that’s followed the initial encounter but believes he’s surpassed his rival after the wild unanimous decision victory he earned over Dan Ige at UFC 303 last month (June 29, 2024).
“I think at this time, what can I tell you, I think we basically have a top-five fight guaranteed, so for the moment, fighting him is not in my plans,” Lopes told MMA Junkie. “If he just happens to be the last option, Okay then we take it. No problem. But from what we’ve discussed with my team and the UFC, we’re looking at a completely different fight.”
Despite only just battling through three rounds on unmatched short notice, Lopes and Ige stated after the fight that they’d love to turn around for fights at Noche UFC in The Sphere on September 14, 2024. Meanwhile, Evloev had hoped to secure a title shot with his most recent win over Arnold Allen but has found himself in the crosshairs of Aljamain Sterling and Lopes.
Now neither wants anything to do with the Russian.
“Now he’s saying that he wants to give me the rematch in The Sphere and all that,” Lopes said. “Now he wants it. He took three months to respond to me when I was calling him out to fight exactly on that International Fight Week card, this last event.
“So now that he knows we’re in a good position, he knows a lot of good has come my way, now he wants to take advantage of this moment to call me out and say he’ll give me the rematch,” he continued. “We have completely different plans, and a rematch with him is not in them. I think with everything that we’ve done, I deserve something bigger than a rematch with Movsar.
“Definitely in the future, we’ll meet again, but for the meantime, he should stay hidden in the mountains like he did for the last three months,” Lopes concluded.