LAS VEGAS – Diego Lopes has a perfect night in mind at UFC 306, and it involves two trips to the octagon.
Lopes (24-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC) meets Brian Ortega (16-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) in the featherweight featured bout on Saturday’s Noche UFC at Sphere (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+). Minutes after Lopes’ fight concludes, teammate Alexa Grasso will put her women’s flyweight title on the line in a historic trilogy bout with Valentina Shevchenko in the co-main event.
If Lopes can execute everything as he hopes, he’ll beat Ortega then return to the cage to be part of Grasso’s corner team.
“That’s absolutely the plan,” Lopes told MMA Junkie and other reporters through an interpreter at Wednesday’s UFC 306 media day. “I know Brian is a great fighter. I’m ready for whatever comes up, but the idea is to run back to the locker room, get changed and go back to corner Alexa.”
Lopes admits there are contingencies in place if he takes significant damage in the fight with Ortega and becomes unavailable. He wants nothing more than to be there for Grasso but trusts that his team and coaches will provide the necessary support no matter what.
“Absolutely we do talk about this,” Lopes said. “I am ready for a war. I’m ready to go full out, and we do debate this as a team and make decisions according to whatever happens, but yeah we spoke about it. We have a strategy for it.”
As important as cornering Grasso is to Lopes, the main priority is the fight with Ortega. It’s the biggest opportunity of Lopes’ career and represents the opportunity to break into title contention.
Reigning 145-pound champion Ilia Topuria recently told MMA Junkie that he sees Lopes as a strong candidate for a future title shot if he can get past Ortega impressively. Lopes is using those comments as a driving force entering UFC 306.
“It’s not every day that you hear that,” Lopes said. “I’m going to fight the No. 3 ranked guy in the division, so it’s just great to hear that kind of compliment and that really sets me up in a better position to come up strong.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.
