{"id":311233,"date":"2025-11-27T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311233\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:48:08","slug":"alexander-volkanovski-vs-diego-lopes-2-announced-for-ufc-325","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311233\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes 2 announced for UFC 325"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alexander Volkanovski is running it back with Diego Lopes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">On Thursday, UFC President Dana White announced on Instagram Live that Volkanovski will defend his title against Lopes in a rematch that headlines UFC 325, which takes place in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 31 (Feb. 1 local time).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Volkanovski defeated Lopes at UFC 314 this past April to capture a vacant title and begin his second reign as featherweight champion. The title was vacated by Ilia Topuria in anticipation of a move to lightweight, and Topuria successfully became champion at 155 pounds with a stunning knockout of Charles Oliveira at UFC 317.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Following his loss to Volkanovski, Lopes quickly returned to the win column with a second-round knockout of Jean Silva in the main event of Noche UFC 3, handing Silva his first UFC loss and snapping his 13-fight win streak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Lopes lost a competitive decision to Volkanovski in their first encounter, but the timing of the rematch is strange given that there are two undefeated contenders waiting in the wings: Movsar Evloev (19-0), who has not competed in 2025 and missed a chunk of time due to injury, and Lerone Murphy (16-0-1), who is coming off of a spectacular first-round finish of former Bellator standout Aaron Pico.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Murphy was rumored to be Volkanovski\u2019s next challenger, with Volkanovski saying at one point that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc-events-ppv\/399790\/alexander-volkanovski-lerone-murphy-fight-a-no-brainer-for-december\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">matchup was \u201ca no-brainer,\u201d<\/a> but it appears he will either have to wait or fight again with Volkanovski vs. Lopes 2 now official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Shortly after the announcement, Murphy shared his disappointment on social media:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cMissing the opportunity to fight one of featherweight\u2019s GOATs is what hurts me the most,\u201d Murphy wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s not about who\u2019s the best anymore. It\u2019s about who\u2019s most popular.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Volkanovski is running it back with Diego Lopes. On Thursday, UFC President Dana White announced on Instagram&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-311233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311233","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=311233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}