{"id":168730,"date":"2025-09-25T16:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T16:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168730\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T16:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T16:44:09","slug":"diego-lopes-back-to-training-willing-to-rematch-alexander-volkanovski-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168730\/","title":{"rendered":"Diego Lopes back to training, willing to rematch Alexander Volkanovski in December"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Diego Lopes wants to make sure to leave one thing clear: He&#8217;s good to go whenever needed.<\/p>\n<p>Despite getting into a war with famed brawler Jean Silva a little less than two weeks ago, Lopes (27-7 MMA, 6-2 UFC) has already returned to training and has cleared his schedule should the UFC need his services anytime soon. With UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski itching to make a return to the cage relatively soon, Lopes wants the UFC and MMA fans to know that he&#8217;s available, pushing aside any doubts on whether he&#8217;d be ready and healed up to fight as soon as December.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, of course, definitely,&#8221; Lopes told <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/nHCKx4ADfHA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Hablemos MMA;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Hablemos MMA<\/a> in Spanish when asked if he&#8217;d be ready to fight in December. &#8220;I had a seven-day suspension, and Monday I returned to the gym to train. People know I like to fight. I&#8217;m never too heavy. I&#8217;m never the person that goes, &#8216;Oh, I need three our four months to prepare for a fight.&#8217; No, I&#8217;m not that type of person. The type of person that I am is someone that the UFC can call and ask to fight next week. I&#8217;ll catch a flight, and I&#8217;m there to fight. So yeah, if the UFC wants me to fight in December, I&#8217;m there.<\/p>\n<p>Lopes, who became the first man to stop Silva by stopping him in a <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/ufc-fight-night-259-results-012431436.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:second-round TKO;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">second-round TKO<\/a> in the main event of Noche UFC, was coming off a unanimous decision loss to Volkanovski for the vacant featherweight title in April. Despite just logging one win since the championship defeat, Lopes believes he re-inserted his name into the title picture at 145 pounds with his spinning-elbow stoppage.<\/p>\n<p>Lopes understands there are other deserving contenders, but none match him in the excitement factor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We haven&#8217;t had any talks, but I did what I said I would and there&#8217;s my work,&#8221; Lopes explained. &#8220;The job was well done, 10 out of 10. Like I had told you before the fight, winning the fight in spectacular fashion would put my name on the table. I think now the UFC definitely has my name on the table, and they&#8217;re now going to have to figure out who&#8217;s next. Also, if we&#8217;re talking about fights that people want to see, I think my name is sounds good to a lot of people. People want exciting fights, fights that get them glued to the T.V. People don&#8217;t want fights where they feel they can go to the bathroom or go get. a glass of water and comeback, and it&#8217;s the same fight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mma\/hablemos-mma\/2025\/09\/25\/diego-lopes-willing-rematch-alexander-volkanovski-december\/86336343007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Diego Lopes willing to rematch Alexander Volkanovski in December;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Diego Lopes willing to rematch Alexander Volkanovski in December<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diego Lopes wants to make sure to leave one thing clear: He&#8217;s good to go whenever needed. Despite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[28981,49,48,36995,641,36993,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-168730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-alexander-volkanovski","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-diego-lopes","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-jean-silva","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168730","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=168730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}