A random Wednesday night ended up becoming the kind of matchmaking spree fight fans live for. Dana White dropped a whole slate of fresh fights into our imaginations just in time to intercept a little of Turki Alalshikh’s shine over in the boxing world.
Deliberate?
That’s left for you to decide, but among the hits were Paddy Pimblett versus Michael Chandler (!), Yair Rodriguez against the recently liberated PFL fighter Patrício Pitbull (!!), and Diego Lopes against Alexander Volkanovski for the vacant featherweight title (!!!). Vacant because it turns out Ilia Topuria wasn’t just making small talk when he expressed a desire to move up to lightweight to challenge for a second title. He was dead serious. And he’s out of there, brother. Gone, sayonara, poof. He done came, saw and kicked some a$$.
On the one hand, Topuria’s conquering of the UFC’s featherweight division feels almost too sudden, if not entirely incomplete. Yes, he overthrew two OGs in Max Holloway (who never loses to anybody not named Alexander Volkanovski) and Volkanovski (who never loses to anybody at 145, period), feats that gave us Billy the Kid in Lincoln County vibes, but there were others hot on his tail.
Namely Lopes and Movsar Evloev. From the perspective of “cleaning out a division,” ghosting viable contenders feels like a bending of the never-official rules. Then again, Ilia explained to UFC matchmakers that he simply couldn’t make 145 anymore, which is a good thing to recognize when history is still out in front of you. The cut was the dealbreaker when it came to defending the title again, so why not turn the focus to new lands?
His reasoning checks out, and if he gets a lightweight title fight against Islam Makhachev — perhaps at International Fight Week — it’s going to be one of the biggest of the summer. It’s rare to get a champion, who at just 28-years-old is very much in his prime and a national icon in his native country (in this case, Spain), coming for the best pound-for-pound fighter going. As Uncrowned editor-in-chief Shaheen Al-Shatti pointed out on social media, to stack wins against Volkanovski, Holloway and Makhachev would legitimately become the greatest three-fight run in MMA history.
All of this leaves a featherweight division without a landlord, though, and Lopes — who will fight for his first title at UFC 314 in April — is by far the single greatest beneficiary. Back in December, when he was in New York to see a Zach Bryan concert with his manager Jason House, one of the names that got tossed around throughout the evening was Volkanovski. It was the hope and understanding that Ilia could be vacating, thus paving the way for Diego to fight Volk.
At the time, I admit, it felt like wishful thinking. But they knew even then Topuria was quietly gathering his things. So, Volk was the focus. If Lopes couldn’t get a shot at Topuria, getting the man who held the belt for over four years — and who was hovering between everything like an old rope in a tug-of-war — was the next best thing. They looked at him the way a lion might a slab of steak. You should’ve seen Lopes smile when thinking about it.
If Topuria ultimately decided to stay at 145, Lopes would look to fight Yair Rodriguez in Mexico City, but this was discussed mostly as a consolation. Not that the Lopes camp didn’t think he could beat Rodriguez, but that scenario just prolonged a title shot that Diego felt he’d already earned by beating Brian Ortega at UFC 306. Diego had done the UFC a solid by staying on the UFC 303 card when Ortega fell out and was replaced with Dan Ige at the 11th hour.
The other fighter to benefit from Topuria’s decision to vacate is of course Evloev, who actually beat Lopes in 2023, when Diego made his debut. The fight carries a fun asterisk in that Lopes took it on short notice and raised a lot of eyebrows in how competitive he made things. Should Lopes get through Volkanoski in Miami, the UFC will have a good fight with a backstory to go along with the chip on Evloev’s shoulder. Imagine how Evloev must feel. He hasn’t lost a fight since beating Lopes (or ever), yet there is the Brazilian/Mexican sensation, getting first crack.
Slights are in the air. Yet if Topuria didn’t leave the division, the glaringly uncharismatic Evloev might’ve forever remained a fight or two away. He has gained vitality as a contender through circumstance.
It’s a new playing field as of Thursday. Other fights that got announced were Leon Edwards versus Sean Brady in London (!), Jack Della Maddalena versus Belal Muhammad (!!), and Manon Fiorot versus Valentina Shevchenko (!!!), the latter two bouts headlining UFC 315 in Montreal. The UFC has reshuffled the decks at a time when it didn’t really need shuffling, but the Topuria domino effect is being felt in a big way.
Pitbull is in to face Rodriguez, Volkanovski gets redirected to Lopes, Lopes gets a title shot, and Makhachev is about to be invaded by Spain. And nobody was happier to see it all fall into place than Lopes.
