Alexander Volkanovski beats Diego Lopes to retain featherweight title at UFC 325

A featherweight title bout at UFC 325 was won by Alexander Volkanovski against Diego Lopes. He won by unanimous decision after a five-round title bout.

Volkanovski, the Australian, was clearly the crowd favorite in the title fight down in Sydney, Australia. Several times the crowd chanted his name. But Lopes did himself proud in a tough fight.

“You’ve got a young, hungry guy like that in there,” Volkanovski said. “I mean I wanted to take him out, I wanted to grab a hold of him and put him down, but he was strong. And I didn’t want to stay for 25 minutes, I’ll be honest. But we got the job done, it’s all good.”

The first round was a bit of a feeling out process for both fighters, with each sizing up the other and his style. The first two minutes or so didn’t feature many strikes, but Volkanovski seemed to settle in a little more quickly, taking the upper hand in the early going.

The second round was much more balanced, and Lopes begin to press a little bit, putting Volkanovski on the back foot. He landed several nice punches in the round and opened up a noticeable cut on Volkanovski’s right cheek bone.

Alexander Volkanovski seemed to take exception to the more even second round, coming out with a vengeance in the third round. He landed several shots to the jaw and was in complete control of the round until late.

Lopes managed to pull things back a good bit near the end of the round, securing a knockdown as Volkanovski went aggressively for a strike to the body. Volkanovski’s team called the knockdown “a slip” ringside, but replays showed Lopes landing a clear right hook to the jaw.

The two continued to battle in the fourth round, with neither able to land enough to down the other fighter. The fifth round included significantly more grappling, as both fighters battled fatigue. Alexander Volkanovski secured a late takedown, and he used the moment to fist pump to the crowd after pinning Lopes upside down near the fence.

The crowd roared its approval. They knew who had won the fight.

“To do it here in Sydney… Sydney! Whoo!” Volkanovski roared after the fight. “It ain’t getting any easier, I can tell you that. There was a lot of things going on in there, and we pushed forward beautifully as always. Adversity is a privilege. I love it. Sometimes things go wrong and I’m like, ‘Let’s go, that’s more of a challenge’ and it fires me up even more.”

Volkanovski improved to 28-4 with the win, while Lopes dropped to 27-8. The Australian outstruck the Brazilian 112-74, while carrying a significant strike advantage of 98-70.

UFC 325 fight scrapped over weigh-in issue

Before Alexander Volkanovski fought on the main card, flyweight fighter Aaron Tau was flagged for an improper weigh-in on Friday morning, ultimately resulting in the cancellation of his fight against Namsrai Batbayar. Tau later apologized for his weigh-in snafu.

According to a report from Yahoo! Sports, Tau leaned on the privacy box during his first weigh-in, effectively shaving several pounds from his weight. But his weight of 122.5 “sparked some concern” and he was forced to weigh in again without the privacy box.

At that point, Tau weighed in at 129 pounds, well over the flyweight limit. So the undercard fight was scrapped, and Tau later apologized.

“I need to apologize to my opponent, the UFC, my team, and my fans,” Tau wrote on Instagram. “Though I pushed to the end, I have one job, to make weight and fight. I didn’t do that. I’m sorry.”