Ilia Topuria will perform well at lightweight, according to Diego Lopes.
In order to advance to lightweight, Topuria gave up his featherweight belt. Since the championship is up for grabs, Lopes will face Alexander Volkanovski in the main event of UFC 314. Despite being preoccupied with his own bout, Lopes says he will keep an eye on Topuria’s performance at lightweight and anticipates the former champion will succeed.
“He’s a guy that can achieve great things in that division,” Lopes told MMA Fighting. “He’s very athletic and quite young, too. I think he’s 27, 28, so I think he has time to do a great run up a division.”
Diego Lopes hopes Ilia Topuria returns to featherweight so they can fight, even if he expects him to perform well at lightweight. In order to make the fight against Topuria even more significant, he also hopes to be the champion at the moment.
“If he comes back, I hope to be the champion so I can fight him,” Lopes said.
The Brazilian isn’t against competing in other weight classes in the future, even though Diego Lopes is scheduled to compete for the vacant featherweight belt.
Although Lopes has previously competed at bantamweight, he currently fights at featherweight in the UFC. He claims that he isn’t ruling out going lightweight in the future or even sliding back down.
“I’ve talked to my nutritionist and he’s said to me, ‘You can fight in any weight class you want,’” Lopes said. “[He said] ‘You have the weight to fight at 135, you have the weight to fight at 145, and you can go up a little bit, have the body structure and height to fight at 155 as well.’ But for now my focus is this division, and then we’ll see what the future holds for us. I’m focused on the division now. Maybe in the future I can go up, no problem, and put on good fights at 155.”
Diego Lopes is currently focused on defeating Alexander Volkanovski and winning the featherweight title in the UFC.
Lopes is currently 26-6 as a professional and recently defeated Brian Ortega via decision. The Brazilian is now on a five-fight winning streak and is 5-1 in the UFC.
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