White: Diego Lopes could be backup for Topuria-Holloway featherweight title fight at UFC 308

09/15/2024 01:40 PM

LAS VEGAS – It looks like Diego Lopes’s busy UFC schedule will continue to stay busy.

Following a dominant decision win over former title challenger Brian Ortega at UFC 306, Lopes (26-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) might get the opportunity to serve as a backup for the upcoming featherweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway – which is set to go down on Oct. 26 at UFC 308. UFC CEO Dana White said he’d be more than willing to give Lopes the opportunity should he want it.

“We’d do anything for that guy, even though he was screaming at me,” White said at the UFC 306 post-fight press conference. “I really like him, so yeah, he could be.”

Lopes jumped open the cage and began to talk to White soon after the final bell of his fight against Ortega at Saturday’s Noche UFC. This caught White off guard given their past, post-fight interactions.

“Usually he’s really nice, but tonight he was screaming at me: ‘Give me my title shot. I get the title shot now,'” White said. “He was very angry tonight. He wasn’t the usual happy-go-lucky Diego Lopes. He was f*cking screaming at me. He was all fired up tonight.”

As far as the performance, White was impressed with what he saw from Lopes, especially the way he chose to fight an always-dangeorous Ortega (16-4 MMA, 8-4 UFC).

“What was fascinating to me is that he drops him right out the gate, and then he jumps on him instead of letting him up and trying to finish him,” White said. “It’s almost like he wanted to submit him or something. I don’t know if that was the case. I think he made the fight a lot tougher than it had to be of him. I think a lot of people were sleeping on him because of the (Dan) Ige fight, and he definitely put that behind him.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie's event hub for UFC 306.