Diego Lopes got the win, and that\u2019s ultimately all that matters to him, but he wasn\u2019t too happy after Jean Silva hit him with a cheap shot in the back of the head just moments after the Noche UFC main event ended.<\/p>\n
The fight played out in dramatic fashion with Lopes dominating early and then Silva storming back in the second round. Just when it appeared Silva was gaining momentum, Lopes uncorked a hellacious spinning back elbow that flattened the Brazilian with the finish coming just a few seconds later.<\/p>\n
Silva protested the stoppage despite blood pouring down his face and replays showing the damage he was absorbing from the blows on the ground. Lopes\u2019 celebration was cut short after Silva got back to his feet and actually threw a punch at him as he was walking away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the [finish], Jean hit me in the back of my head. I said what happened?\u201d Lopes recounted on the Noche UFC post-fight show. \u201cI said I don\u2019t know. After this, this guy tried to be nice with me. I cannot understand. Are you trying to be my friend? Go to your side. This guy hit me in my head, the back of my head. I think this is not nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silva appeared to calm down after the initial altercation and it looked like he made amends after Lopes was announced as the winner with a second-round TKO.<\/p>\n
The punch to the back of the head was bothersome but Lopes admits he was mostly ready to unleash his own emotions after hearing Silva\u2019s team talk trash to him all week long. That\u2019s what led to him jumping on top of the cage and throwing up double middle fingers as Lopes got the last laugh in the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy talked a lot in the fight,\u201d Lopes said. \u201cI\u2019m so calm. I\u2019m not talking. I told everyone, I\u2019ll talk in the octagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the fight, I go to your corner, I told your coaches [put] more respect on my name because [leading up to the fight], this guy commented, he talked shit in the post [on social media].\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the bad blood between teams, Lopes got the job done in the moment that mattered most and he revealed afterwards that he was actually prepared to throw that spinning back elbow when the perfect opening happened in the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI prepared a lot for this fight,\u201d Lopes said. \u201cI told all week, I\u2019m coming guys but [I do my talking] in the octagon. I tell you this game has levels. Tomorrow, today, I showed everyone this game has levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter he started connecting with a couple of punches that he would have more confidence to try for the knockout. But I know, after this, every time this guy is a little bit exposed. He attacks so long, he\u2019s a little bit exposed this time for the spinning back elbow. I trained this backstage with my coach and my training partners, too. I\u2019m so grateful to my team for this perfect game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strategy paid off with Lopes scoring the highlight reel finish and now he\u2019s back on track following a loss to UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski in his previous outing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diego Lopes got the win, and that\u2019s ultimately all that matters to him, but he wasn\u2019t too happy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-143414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}