Diego Lopes expects Ilia Topuria to do well at lightweight, still hopes they can end up fighting

Diego Lopes is confident Ilia Topuria will do well at lightweight.

Topuria vacated his featherweight title so he can move up to lightweight. With the belt vacated, Lopes will headline UFC 314 against Alexander Volkanovski for the vacant title. Although Lopes is focused on his own fight, he says he will pay attention to how Topuria does at lightweight and expects the former champ to have success.

“He’s a guy that can achieve great things in that division,” Lopes told MMA Fighting. “He’s very athletic and quite young, too. I think he’s 27, 28, so I think he has time to do a great run up a division.”

Although Diego Lopes expects Ilia Topuria to do well at lightweight, he is hopeful he returns to featherweight so they can fight. He also hopes he is the champion at the time, so the bout with Topuria is even bigger.

“If he comes back, I hope to be the champion so I can fight him,” Lopes said.

Diego Lopes not ruling out changing weight classes

Although Diego Lopes is set to fight for the vacant featherweight title, the Brazilian isn’t opposed to fighting in different weight classes in the future.

Lopes has fought at featherweight in the UFC, but has fought at bantamweight in the past. So, he says he isn’t ruling out dropping back down, or even going up to lightweight in the future.

“I’ve talked to my nutritionist and he’s said to me, ‘You can fight in any weight class you want,’” Lopes said. “[He said] ‘You have the weight to fight at 135, you have the weight to fight at 145, and you can go up a little bit, have the body structure and height to fight at 155 as well.’ But for now my focus is this division, and then we’ll see what the future holds for us. I’m focused on the division now. Maybe in the future I can go up, no problem, and put on good fights at 155.”

Ultimately, the focus right now for Diego Lopes is beating Alexander Volkanovski and becoming the UFC’s featherweight champion.

Lopes is 26-6 as a pro and coming off a decision win over Brian Ortega. The Brazilian is 5-1 in the UFC and is riding a five-fight winning streak.