Diego Lopes is having quite the year and the rising featherweight contender can add to his impressive 2024 with a win over Brian Ortega on Saturday at UFC 306: O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili at the organization’s debut Sphere event.
If all goes to plan this weekend, Lopes will not only extend his winning streak to five, but fight fans will also see him in Alexa Grasso’s corner in the co-main event mere minutes after he finishes competing against Ortega.
Lopes and Grasso are teammates at Lobo Gym MMA in Grasso’s native Mexico, and Lopes told reporters Wednesday in Las Vegas that he plans to pick up a clean main card win over a former title challenger, go backstage to quickly change, and then join Grasso’s other coaches for the completion of her 125-pound championship trilogy with Valentina Shevchenko.
If anyone in the 145-pound division is capable of picking up a clean victory requiring little time from which he emerges unscathed, it’s Lopes.
The 29-year-old Brazilian has three first-round stoppage victories within the past 13 months.
He is coming off a unanimous decision win over Dan Ige in a fight that came together on several hours’ notice at UFC 303 in June after Lopes’s original opponent, Ortega, withdrew due to illness the day of the fight.
Lopes is ranked as the No. 13 contender at featherweight; Ortega is No. 3 and challenged both Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski during their times as 145-pound champion.
Grasso is set to defend her women’s flyweight title against former champ Shevchenko. It would technically be Grasso’s first title defence, as her last fight resulted in a retention due to a controversial draw at the inaugural Noche UFC one year ago. Grasso originally won the title at UFC 285 in March 2023, when she submitted Shevchenko with a fourth-round face crank.
Lopes was on Grasso’s coaching staff during The Ultimate Fighter: Team Grasso vs. Team Shevchenko earlier this year.