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A featherweight championship rematch headlined Saturday’s UFC 325 fight card in Sydney, Australia. Two-time titleholder Alexander Volkanovski puts his title on the line against Diego Lopes.
Volkanovski and Lopes first fought last April in the UFC 314 main event. “The Great” won via unanimous decision to become a two-time featherweight titleholder. The rematch will be Volkanovski’s first title defense of his second championship reign. Lopes picked up a TKO win over Jean Silva in September to earn a second fight against the champion.
Former welterweight titleholder Belal Muhammad believes Volkanovski put in a near perfect performance in the first fight with Lopes and needs to stick to what worked.
“Volk did a beautiful job of sticking to that jab, low kicks, controlling the pace of the fight, controlling the range of the fight. I thought Volk basically fought the perfect fight against Lopes that fight. I think he had only one little slip up where he got rocked. Other than that, I thought it was a super clean fight for Volk and one of his best performances,” Muhammad said on his YouTube channel.
“I think Volk has to establish that jab again. Get Diego going on his back foot,” Muhammad continued. “Volk just can’t get caught into that chaos. He did get rocked that fight and you’re still coming off two knockouts before that, right? We saw that his chin could hold up and it did hold up the last fight, but you don’t want to keep playing with it because you never know when your chin is done.”
Muhammad advised Lopes to not do what he did in their first fight, and to be more active in the early rounds.
“For Lopes, you can’t do what you did last fight. I don’t know if it was your first title fight, nerves, didn’t know if you could go five rounds, but didn’t do much especially in the early rounds. You’ve got to do what you’re good at. That’s bringing the chaos, brining the damage” Muhammad said. “You’ve got to start in the first round. Just let it all out there.”
“My pick for this one, I don’t know. I really wish Volk would have retired after the last one. It was a great win. Diego had a lot of hype,” said Muhammad. “It’s just hard to fight somebody back to back.”
“You know Diego is going to come better. I don’t know if Volk could come better, so I’m picking Diego in this one.”
