Did Yair Rodriguez Turn Down Diego Lopes For Noche UFC?
Today at 08:21 PM
Where the hell has "El Pantera" been?
Former interim Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight champion Yair Rodriguezfinally returns to action in two months (Sat., April 12, 2025) at UFC 314 when he welcomes former Bellator two-division champion Patrício Pitbull to the UFC, which is all set to go down inside Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida.
Rodriguez was last in action in the co-main event of UFC Mexico City almost a year ago to the day (watch highlights) but has vanished ever since.
Honestly, it's not too surprising because the Mexican fighter tends to fight once a year nowadays, but he was missing from UFC 306, aka Noche UFC, which was UFC CEO Dana White's love letter to Mexico.
In an interview today with Ariel Helwani, Rodriguez revealed he was offered to fight on the now-legendary Sphere card.
"I was offered to fight Diego Lopes," Rodriguez said. "Honestly, I was coming from losing the [Featherweight] championship and losing against Brian Ortega. And [UFC] was saying, 'Maybe Diego Lopes would be a great fit for you.'"
"We were just talking about it. You look to fight someone just as close to you or in front of you [in the rankings]. So I said, 'It looks like Diego Lopes was ranked No. 14, and he was looking to get someone in the top 10 at least.' And the UFC said, 'Okay, we're going to give [Lopes] to Brian Ortega, and then he beat Brian Ortega. Now, he is in the situation he's in.'"
Did "El Pantera" turn Lopes down? He did not say that word for word, but if you read through the lines, it seems he wasn't interested in giving a red-hot prospect a shot at him, especially because he's on a two-fight losing streak.
At the end of the day, it is a moot point because everything has played out, but it's interesting to see what the promotion was thinking in terms of potential matchmaking.
