Alexander Volkanovski open to interim title fight against Diego Lopes for UFC return: “You never know”

Former UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski believes he could face Diego Lopes next.

The Brazilian fighter is fresh off his return to the cage on the main card of Noche UFC on Saturday. There, Diego Lopes faced the biggest test of his career in the form of Brian Ortega. ‘T-City’ was hoping to earn a title shot with a victory, and was coming off a submission victory over Yair Rodriguez in February.

However, the former title challenger wound up getting dominated on Saturday night. Diego Lopes hurt Ortega early and often, securing a unanimous decision victory after 15 minutes of action. Now ranked in the top five, many believe the Brazilian could fight for gold in his next outing. However, Alexander Volkanovski has something to say about that.

‘The Great’ hasn’t been in the cage since a second-round knockout loss to Ilia Topuria in February. However, Alexander Volkanovski has continuously called for a return to the octagon, and he believes a title shot should be next. Speaking in a video on his YouTube channel, the featherweight discussed Noche UFC, and Diego Lopes’ big win.

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Alexander Volkanovski open to potential interim UFC title fight against Diego Lopes

There, Alexander Volkanovski showed interest in a fight against the Brazilian. While the former champion doesn’t think Diego Lopes should jump him in line for a title shot, he does believe they could meet for an interim title in the future. However, that also depends on how Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway goes next month.

“Lopes is right up there now, I’m going to guess he’ll be ranked number three. Obviously, my next fight is for the title.” Alexander Volkanovski stated on his YouTube channel, reacting to Noche UFC. “If anything happens, if there’s injuries in the Max vs. Ilia fight, who knows what’s going to happen? Could there be an interim with someone like Lopes? You never know.”

He continued, “We’ll see what happens. I want to fight soon, and obviously my next fight is for the title. But if they can’t do that soon enough, say if Max wins is he going to go to lightweight going and [defend] the ‘BMF’, will they do an interim fight? They haven’t had the proper discussions so I’ll get back to the UFC and have a proper chat. All I know is my next fight is for the title, so let’s find out exactly what’s happening there.”

What do you make of these comments from the former UFC champion? Do you want to see Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes?