Diego Lopes\u2019 loss to Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 325 left one UFC star perplexed at the Brazilian\u2019s gameplan in the cage.<\/p>\n
UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski turned away Diego Lopes for the second time in less than a year last weekend at UFC 325<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a signature performance from the featherweight GOAT candidate, Volkanovski outpointed Lopes by unanimous decision to retain the featherweight title. Lopes wasn\u2019t able to pour on the pressure in the later rounds as Volkanovski outgrappled the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ace when the fight moved to the ground.<\/p>\n Lopes earned a quick rematch with Volkanovski despite a lopsided defeat in their first matchup at UFC 314. One former UFC champ was confused by Lopes\u2019 lack of urgency in the Octagon for his rematch against the reigning featherweight titleholder.<\/p>\n Kamaru Usman: Diego Lopes lacked any urgency in UFC 325 loss<\/p>\n In a recent episode of the Pound 4 Pound<\/a> podcast, former UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman reacted to Lopes\u2019 performance at UFC 325.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI saw the change, but it just didn\u2019t work out because he was being more measured,\u201d Usman said of Lopes.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I get it. He saw the kicks a lot more to where he was stepping back from that low kick and the calf kicks, and he was able to read those a lot better, and he wasn\u2019t just in the fire going crazy right away, and head hunting right away. But I feel like he held himself back so much to where he changed his style of fight.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like, especially in the first round, I felt he gave the first round away because he\u2019s trying to calculate and read and see what\u2019s going on, be more calculated and measured, but I felt like he kind of gave the fight away like that,\u201d Usman continued on Lopes. \u201cVolk is one of those guys, he\u2019s not going to slow down. He\u2019s going to keep moving.\u201d (h\/t MMA Junkie<\/a>)<\/p>\n Volkanovski will likely face the Lerone Murphy vs. Movsar Evloev winner for his next title defense. As for Lopes, he\u2019ll likely have to go on another impressive win streak before earning another shot at the belt.<\/p>\n Who should Alexander Volkanovski fight next after UFC 325? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diego Lopes\u2019 loss to Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 325 left one UFC star perplexed at the Brazilian\u2019s gameplan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[34341,64,63,44864,786,61175,785,85,787,188424],"class_list":["post-456764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alexander-volkanovski","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-diego-lopes","tag-fighting","tag-kamaru-usman","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-325"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}