The tables have turned. At least that’s how Diego Lopes sees his ongoing feud with fellow UFC contender Movsar Evloev.
Lopes, who lost to Evloev in his short-notice UFC debut back in 2023, had long been asking for a rematch with the Russian fighter. However, there was little attention or mind to the callout by Evloev. Now, a year later, Lopes is in a much more different position and finds himself getting called out by Evloev – something he doesn’t want to entertain for the time being.
“I think at this time, what can I tell you, I think we basically have a top-five fight guaranteed, so for the moment, fighting him is not in my plans,” Lopes told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “If he just happens to be the last option, OK, then we take it – no problem. But from what we’ve discussed with my team and the UFC, we’re looking at a completely different fight.”
Lopes is coming off a unanimous decision win over Dan Ige in a fight he accepted on four hours’ notice in one of the wildest moments in modern UFC history. This victory capped a 4-0 run that’s turned Lopes into a contender at 145 pounds and one of the most beloved fighters in the promotion.
Lopes (25-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC) finds it funny how the dynamic with Evloev (18-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) changed so drastically.
“Now he’s saying that he wants to give me the rematch in the Sphere and all that. Now he wants it,” Lopes said. “He took three months to respond to me when I was calling him out to fight exactly on that International Fight Week card, this last event.
“So now that he knows we’re in a good position, he knows a lot of good has come my way, now he wants to take advantage of this moment to call me out and say he’ll give me the rematch. We have completely different plans, and a rematch with him is not in them. I think with everything that we’ve done, I deserve something bigger than a rematch with Movsar.”
This is not to say that Lopes won’t fight Evloev eventually. Lopes is targeting a return on Noche UFC at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Sept. 14 against Brian Ortega or Alexander Volkanovski for the time being, but he’s unsure of what the future will bring beyond that.
“Definitely in the future we’ll meet again, but for the meantime he should stay hidden in the mountains like he did for the last three months,” Lopes said.
