{"id":457997,"date":"2026-02-06T17:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457997\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:21:08","slug":"t-j-dillashaw-diego-lopes-had-to-create-chaos-vs-alexander-volkanovski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457997\/","title":{"rendered":"T.J. Dillashaw: Diego Lopes had to ‘create chaos’ vs. Alexander Volkanovski"},"content":{"rendered":"

T.J. Dillashaw was frustrated while watching Diego Lopes<\/a>‘ performance at UFC 325.<\/p>\n

This past Saturday at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Lopes (27-8 MMA, 6-3 UFC) lost a unanimous decision to featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski<\/a> (28-4 MMA, 15-3 UFC) once again. Dillashaw didn’t see any changes from Lopes from the first fight to the rematch, and broke down what went wrong.<\/p>\n

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He thinks Lopes tried to fight Volkanovski’s fight and was too tentative.<\/p>\n

“He’s consistent, but he’s definitely aged,” Dillashaw said of Volkanovski on the “JAXXON Podcast.”<\/a> “He’s just really smart with the way he fights. … Diego’s problem in this fight, which he did in the first fight, as well, too, and I told you why he wasn’t going to win, is he tried to point fight him. He’s not switching up how he fights. He needs to create chaos. He’s best when it’s a f*cking chaos, dirty fight. You can’t point fight Volkanovski, and that’s why Volkanovski has not aged the way you think he has because he fights smart, he doesn’t get hit, he circles his feet really well, he feints, he kicks, he exits. He’s picking his shots very well. He’s not a counter fighter.<\/p>\n

“He’s not going to stay in there and try to exchange with you when you’re coming in, so you’ve got to create chaos. He’s going to get out of the way and you’ve got to cut him off, and you’ve got to turn it into a dirty (fight). I don’t understand why when Diego came and sat in the corner, he was so worried about the takedowns. Every grappling exchange they had, Diego actually won the grappling. So it’s like, get into those grappling situations. Get a hold of him, let him shoot a shot on you, get into these scrambles, get into these brawls where he has to exchange with you. That’s where you catch him. Diego’s got power in his hands, but you’re not going to catch him by point fighting.”<\/p>\n

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After losing to Volkanovski the first time at UFC 314, Lopes rebounded with a spinning back elbow knockout of Jean Silva<\/a>. Dillashaw says that version of Lopes needed to show up against Volkanovski in the rematch.<\/p>\n

“That’s how he needed to treat this fight,” Dillashaw said. “He’s trying to point fight, he’s letting Volkanovski circle, he’s letting him pick his shots. I need you to throw. You’re in that open stance right now \u2013\u00a0boom. Throw a 2-kick just to enter. Now follow it. Don’t pull it back. Volkanovski is not a counter fighter. Throw that kick to cut him off and then throw your hands. Get him to throw back so you have a chance to clip him with that right hook.<\/p>\n

“He’s got power in his hands. Get him to exchange with you so you can catch him with one of your punches. You’re never going to out-speed him. You’re not going to outpoint him. You’ve got to create chaos. He was too content with keeping his distance. Why be afriad of the takedowns? He’s got a granite chin. Volk’s not a counter puncher, you’ve got a granite chin, so f*cking go for it. Just go. You’re not going to win a world title by watching Volk outpoint you.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: T.J. Dillashaw explains what went wrong for Diego Lopes at UFC 325<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T.J. Dillashaw was frustrated while watching Diego Lopes‘ performance at UFC 325. This past Saturday at Qudos Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[28981,49,48,36995,641,638,82,52622,640,142930],"class_list":["post-457997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alexander-volkanovski","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-diego-lopes","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-t-j-dillashaw","tag-ufc","tag-volkanovski"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457997","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=457997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}