{"id":446989,"date":"2026-02-01T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446989\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T10:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:09:10","slug":"alexander-volkanovski-equals-star-mma-fighters-record-as-aussie-dominates-diego-lopes-at-ufc-325","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446989\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Volkanovski equals star MMA fighter’s record as Aussie dominates Diego Lopes\u00a0at UFC 325"},"content":{"rendered":"

By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS <\/p>\n

Published: 03:41 EST, 1 February 2026 | Updated: 04:08 EST, 1 February 2026 <\/p>\n

UFC<\/a> featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski<\/a> has added to his already magnificent MMA career with an impressive and record-equalling points win over Brazilian challenger Diego Lopes.<\/p>\n

Two judges scored Sunday’s fight in Sydney<\/a> 49-46 and the third one 50-45, as 37-year-old New South Wales<\/a> MMA star Volkanovski moved level with legend Jose Aldo on eight featherweight title wins.<\/p>\n

It was the first defence of his second reign as champion, after winning the vacant title against Lopes last April.<\/p>\n

Respecting his opponent’s power, Volkanovski showed his renowned fighting nous, utilising movement well and rarely allowed the hard-hitting Brazilian to tag him.<\/p>\n

Volkanovski consistently landed right-hand punches to the head, and his left jab also found the target frequently in his first fight in Sydney in over eight years.<\/p>\n

Lopes stuffed several takedown attempts through the first four rounds, but Volkanovski got him to the ground in the fifth round of the contest at Qudos Bank Arena.<\/p>\n

\"UFC <\/p>\n

UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski has added to his already magnificent MMA career with an impressive and record-equalling points win over Diego Lopes<\/p>\n

\"It <\/p>\n

It was the first defence of his second reign as champion, after winning the vacant title against Lopes last April<\/p>\n

\"Volkanovski <\/p>\n

Volkanovski consistently landed right-hand punches to the head, and his left jab also found the target frequently in his first fight in Sydney in over eight years<\/p>\n

‘I wanted to take him down and grab hold of him and put him down but he’s strong,’ Volkanovski said.<\/p>\n

‘I didn’t want to stand for 25 minutes, I’ll be honest, but we got the job done.<\/p>\n

‘We were ready for him to make the right adjustments; his team did a good job,’ added Volkanovski.<\/p>\n

‘Obviously, we learnt from the last fight, we moved to the right and did a great job of cutting that off straight away, but that just means I can use all my other tools.<\/p>\n

‘I made the adjustments, that’s what makes a true champion.’<\/p>\n

In a co-main event between ranked lightweights, No.8 Benoit Saint Denis of France scored a second-round TKO over No.6, Dan Hooker of New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Of the 11 Australians in action, seven won.<\/p>\n

Perth’s Quillan Salkilld called for a ranked opponent after securing his fourth UFC win inside 12 months with an impressive first-round submission of more experienced compatriot Jamie Mullarkey.<\/p>\n

Popular Sydney heavyweight Tai Tuivasa suffered a sixth straight loss.<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Alexander Volkanovski equals star MMA fighter’s record as Aussie dominates Diego Lopes\u00a0at UFC 325<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: 03:41 EST, 1 February 2026 | Updated: 04:08 EST, 1 February 2026 UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[28981,49,48,2093,641,638,22751,457,82,1856,640],"class_list":["post-446989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alexander-volkanovski","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dailymail","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-new-south-wales","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446989","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=446989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}