Diego Lopes vs. Pat Sabatini kick off the pay-per-view portion of UFC 295 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, and it’s a fight the Brazilian hoped to get for quite some time.
Lopes is always watching jiu-jitsu and grappling tournaments, and his attention was piqued by a matchup between MMA featherweights Sabatini and Alex Caceres,
Lopes was still competing in Mexico’s regional MMA scene, hoping to catch the attention of UFC matchmakers. He thought grappling a UFC fighter could get him a deal in the company.
“I asked my manager to try and get me a grappling match with him,” Lopes said of Sabatini on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast. “And to be fighting him now, that’s pretty funny. I saw him compete in grappling, and it’s so cool that I have the chance to fight him in the UFC now.
“When they announced the fight [for UFC 295] I was like, ‘I remember this dude.’ I remembered his fighting style, the things he did. Watching his MMA fights, what he does is basically adapt the same things to MMA. We have his game studied and mapped out, and we’re ready for whatever he offers us.”
Sabatini, a former Cage Fury FC featherweight champion, choked out Lucas Almeida with an arm-triangle choke in his most recent UFC appearance in June, improving to 5-1 in the company. Lopes recently forced Gavin Tucker to tap with a flying triangle-armbar to rebound from an electric debut loss to top-ranked Movsar Evloev.
Lopes, who is now 1-1 in the UFC with two $50,000 bonuses in his pocket, competes in jiu-jitsu for nearly two decades, and finished his UFC 295 training in his native Manaus, the birthplace for a number of jiu-jitsu legends in Brazil. Lopes said two high-level grapplers could result in a 15-minute kickboxing match in MMA, but that’s not his plan for UFC 295.
“We know anything can happen in a fight,” Lopes said. “I think I have the edge in grappling because I can submit him from any position. I’m always going for the submission, but I also know that he defends really well. This jiu-jitsu clash will be great.
“I’ve trained with two world champion [in Manaus], and I’m ready to shock the world one more time. I’m here to make it clear that I’m a strong candidate to be in the top 15, top 10, and top 5 next year.”
