UFC 325 gave Alexander Volkanovski another chance to show why he’s the featherweight champ, while Diego Lopes came up short yet again in a title fight against his elder. Here are the five biggest takeaways from the UFC’s latest trip to Australia.
1. What if age is just another overmatched opponent to Alexander Volkanovski? We keep waiting for him to show up and finally look like a featherweight on the wrong side of 35. He keeps going out there and looking more or less the same as ever, right down to the shiny bald head and the trim of his beard.
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Volkanovski, 37, is as smart a fighter as we’ve ever seen at 145 pounds. His ability to read opponents and adjust on the fly is arguably his greatest superpower. If you plan to last in this game, especially at the top of the lighter weight classes, relying on fight IQ and adaptability is a much more resilient base than going on speed or reflexes or power alone. You’re simply not going to out-think the featherweight champ, so you’d better have some other arrows in your quiver.
That said, the hungry young(er) wolves are at the door. Movsar Evloev. Lerone Murphy. It’s hard not to wonder how much longer an aging, undersized 145-pounder can hold that title down in a division where everyone’s been gunning for him for around seven years now. Stick around long enough, and the odds of a happy ending only get worse. Even “Volk” can only outsmart Father Time for so long.
2. Lopes must have actually liked losing a title fight by decision the first time, seeing as how he did so very little to avoid a repeat in this rematch. Seriously, what was the plan here? Everyone else who watched that first fight expected more urgency, more aggression, less waiting around and dancing to the champion’s tune. But Lopes went out there Saturday and fought like this bout was just a continuation of the last. Round 6, here we go. Doing more of the same and hoping for a different result.
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I don’t get it. Did he not know there were judges scoring these rounds? Did he not know there were only five of those rounds? If you’re not going to outwork the other guy, then you have to out-hurt him. And if you’re not going to do that, then you have to finish him. Lopes had some openings to pursue such strategies, just like he did in the first fight. Still he seemed weirdly content to let the clock tick down, as if these opportunities were in endless supply. They aren’t. Neither are title shots. He was lucky to get a second one so soon after the first. But after that showing, I wouldn’t count on there being a third.
3. Benoit Saint Denis is trying to make us forget about his very unfortunate stretch in 2024 — and it might be working. The Frenchman hasn’t lost since that two-fight skid. He also hasn’t let anyone make it past the second round. Here he needed just a bit of settling in before mauling Dan Hooker, which may or may not be the kind of thing that still earns a man title shot considerations at 155 pounds.
Saint Denis still doesn’t seem polished enough to be a serious challenge for someone like UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, but he does seem like a fun matchup for basically anyone in the top five while we wait to see how the chips fall between Topuria and new interim champ Justin Gaethje.
4. Tallison Teixeira proved it is possible to beat Tai Tuivasa without gaining much from it. Before he did it, I would have said it wasn’t possible. What do you mean you picked up a win over a popular heavyweight but somehow made people less excited than ever about you? How does that even happen?
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Turns out it can be accomplished rather easily. All you have to do is coast to a shaky decision finish against a guy who hasn’t won a fight in four years. Bonus points if you can somehow look even more exhausted than he does, while still holding on for a win solely because neither of you had the gas tank to fight three full rounds. This was painful to watch. It might look like a rebound on Teixeira’s record, but it didn’t exactly make him look like the new boogeyman at heavyweight. Good news is, it probably won’t be too difficult to find people willing to fight him after that display.
5. Give Rafael Fiziev points for heart. He ate those right hands from Mauricio Ruffy and his brain told his legs to pack it in and call it a day. Fiziev wasn’t having it. He still wanted to fight, even when he was stumbling like a newborn colt. There is no quit in that man.
But there is a ton of power in Ruffy’s fists, which made all the difference.
He stayed after Fiziev, stayed calm in his final assault, and got back in the win column after his lone UFC loss to Saint Denis last year. Ruffy still seems like he has all the pieces to be somebody at lightweight. Even if it is a crowded, chaotic field at the moment.
