Athletes
Coach Conversation | Alexander Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes
Xtreme Couture’s Eric Nicksick Shares His Thoughts On Saturday’s UFC 314 Clash For The Vacant Featherweight Title
Championship fights are layered battles, with the competitors stepping into the Octagon operating at the highest level in their respective weight classes. Breaking down how these pivotal contests could possibly play out is a challenging venture, which is why UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte has taken to enlisting the help of some of the sharpest minds in the sport to help dissect these critical contests.
Ahead of this weekend’s battle for the vacant featherweight title between former champ Alexander Volkanovski and Brazilian standout Diego Lopes, Kyte sat down with Xtreme Couture leader Eric Nicksick to discuss what to watch for this weekend and how things may play out on Saturday night at Kaseya Center.
Best Trait of Each Fighter
Kyte: Okay — let’s start with Diego Lopes. I would say his best trait is his explosiveness; his ability to create situations that present him opportunities.
Nicksick: The Gavin Tucker fight. The fight with Pat Sabatini.
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Kyte: Sodiq (Yusuff). Even the Evloev fight. The reason that fight is so “What the hell?” is because there is no moment where he’s not attacking. Even though he’s on his back, he’s feet-on-hips, he’s actively shifting his hips — looking and searching and hunting, trying to find stuff.
To me, that’s his best trait. There is a chaotic element to it where he’s coming at you and you’ve gotta deal with it. If he’s gonna get you, it’s gonna be early. Look at his fights: first three guys he beats, he gets them all out of there in under 100 seconds, and the last two, as it’s gotten tougher, have been decisions.
Fair assessment?
UFC 314 Countdown | Alexander Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes
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UFC 314 Countdown | Alexander Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes
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Nicksick: Absolutely. I think the explosive start is super-important. He’s got to look to make Volkanovski uncomfortable early, and try to get in there with some unpredictable entries — flying knees, spinning attacks; stuff to keep Volkanovski off-guard.
Where he’s at his best is in those early moments when he’s pressing and looking to get you out of there before you have a chance to settle in, figure him out at all.
Kyte: And what about for Volk?
Obviously, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters we’ve seen, has all the weapons, has all the elements — this is what I love about this fight, because all the things I want to say that are great about him, he’s also coming off three losses in four fights.
UFC 314 INTERVIEWS: Alexander Volkanovski | Diego Lopes | Yair Rodriguez | Patricio Pitbull | Michael Chandler | Paddy Pimblett
Nicksick: I think he’s more polished, better Fight IQ, but I think he has more of a cerebral attack, and he’s very innovative in his approach. I think he’s more of a heady fighter than Lopes is…
Kyte: Great word, and I would say he’s more heady than most people.
Nicksick: Yeah, so I would say his Fight IQ, but his depth of knowledge when it comes to striking and grappling. I think this guy is elite when it comes to what he can do out of both stances, on the floor.
There really isn’t a hole to his game, except lately, it has been his chin.
Kyte: How do you use that headiness against a guy like Lopes that hasn’t been here, that is — and I don’t say this in a critical way — puffing out his chest right now, thinking he’s unstoppable, and rightfully so, because no one has stopped him over these last bunch of fights.
But if you’re Volk, how do you use that experience, that headiness to counter a guy like that? Is it as simple as the stuff we talk about like “I know he’s coming guns blazing for the first half of this round, so I’m gonna make sure I’m defensively responsible, keep myself in it, and we’re gonna make this about two through five;” is that all it is?
Path to Victory
Nicksick: A hundred percent. I think that’s his game plan. You want to make him expend as much energy as you can in the first two-and-a-half rounds, and then, “Okay, this is where the big boys step up. I’m gonna make you wrestle, grapple, chase me down.”
Alexander Volkanovski Talks Fighting Diego Lopes | UFC 314
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Alexander Volkanovski Talks Fighting Diego Lopes | UFC 314
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Kyte: Deal with these low kicks. Deal with me bashing your body. Deal with these stance switches.
Nicksick: Exactly. Take as much energy as you can from him, and then the real clinic begins halfway through Round 2, start of Round 3.
I think — and the thing you see with Volkanovski, especially in the Max Holloway fights — is that he’s patient, and not only that, he’s willing to continue to do something that works if you’re not willing to fix it.
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Kyte: Right. He’s not forcing stuff.
Nicksick: He’s not greedy.
Kyte: He’s as content as can be to beat you on the scorecards, running away from you, in terms of the score, not the action.
Nicksick: A hundred percent, and that’s where his best trait with his Fight IQ comes into his path to victory because of his patience, the variety of ways he can beat you. I think he’s just far more polished than Lopes, in my opinion.
Kyte: And then the opposite side of that coin, if you’re Lopes, and we agree the best trait is that early energy, that explosiveness — when you’re facing a guy that has been knocked out in his last two fights — is there a way to weaponize that?
Is that where you just say to yourself, “Let me try to get this guy out of here in 90 seconds” and get after him right away?
Nicksick: I think his best path to victory is to try to get on him as fast as possible, and play with that a little — that uncertainty of whether his chin is still there or not.
Kyte: He’s gotta be questioning it, right?
Nicksick: Oh yeah. (Lopes) wants to force some of those pocket exchanges you would see with Holloway and Gaethje in the last 10 seconds — you want to force some chaotic exchanges, throughout the entire fight, for sure, but especially early on.
Diego Lopes Talks First Title Shot | UFC 314
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Diego Lopes Talks First Title Shot | UFC 314
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Kyte: He wants it to be like his fight with Sodiq where they got in real tight, so it can be “I’m gonna throw these uppercuts and we’re gonna see if your chin holds up.”
Nicksick: Yeah — he wants to bomb on him, and you want to take a page out of what Topuria did and funnel him; get him against a post where it takes away a lot of his exits. Because he’s so good with his movements, because he’s so good with his countering, eliminating the geography and putting him in a funnel is what I would try to do immediately.
Saturday's Full Fight Card Preview
Get him up against the barrier and look to attack.
X Factor
Kyte: What, if anything, is the X-factor in this fight?
Is it Volkanovski’s durability, because if it’s gone…
This feels like a fight that can go so many different ways because there are so many weird little variables we don’t understand and we won’t understand until we see what happens.
Nicksick: My X-factor is can Lopes keep the fight wild long enough in order to find something big or submit him or does Volk get past that storm, lock into his rhythm, and break Lopes’ consistent pressure and composure?
If it’s chaos, it’s Lopes. If it’s order, it’s Volk, right? And how do you create chaos against a guy as that is very self-disciplined with the way he fights?
Kyte: You’re on fire tonight with the language; dropping heady and now chaos and order.
I agree with you about that, but man, it feels weird for it to be as simple as “Is Volk just beyond it?” We’ve talked about all the guys over the age of 35 and lighter weight classes, and as good as he was during that run, it’s four five-round fights in five fights — twice with Max, the distance with Ortega, and once again with Max.
RELATED: Volkanovski Looks To Reclaim Throne | Lopes' Road To Title
He cruised in the last few wins of his title reign, but it’s still 25 minutes where you’re getting hit, and you’re 36 and you’ve been through some wars. It feels, it’s such a weird thing because it might just be that Islam (Makhachev) and Ilia (Topuria) are the best two fighters on the planet right now.
Nicksick: That’s such a great point.
I have a feeling — and I’ve seen a lot of oddsmakers talking about laying it on Diego Lopes, but that would not be my play.
Kyte: No; my lean is 100 percent Volk.
Nicksick: Me too.
Kyte: He’s taken over a year, he’s not — I feel like the Topuria fight was him trying to prove something.
He goes up, loses to Islam the first time, his stock goes through the roof, and then he goes out and mauls Yair (Rodriguez) like a lot of smart people expected him to maul Yair. And then he goes into the second one, and it’s ill-advised and I think he turned around and thought, “This is gonna be like when I mauled Yair,” and he got in there with a kid that is too good.
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You can’t do those things.
Full Fight | Diego Lopes vs Brian Ortega
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Full Fight | Diego Lopes vs Brian Ortega
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Now he’s had over a year, and as good as I think Diego Lopes is, he’s not Ilia Topuria, and it feels too hard for me to say that all of sudden Volk isn’t elite any more.
Nicksick: Let me steal a word from the kids: low-key, I think you can see Volkanovski taking him down and being able to control him on the ground the way (Joanderson) Brito did, and even (Dan) Ige did.
Late in the game, if you can avoid the submissions just by playing guard or half-guard, you can negate it. The other thing too is that if I’ve canned two rounds out of three and I know I can go in there, dominate you in the wrestling, and I know you like to play off your back, I might go out there in four and five and wrestle, knowing that you have to get a finish.
Kyte: I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do it earlier too, because you know Lopes is fine with being there. Thats’ the tricky part.
Nicksick: He’s happy being on his back.
Full Fight | Alexander Volkanvoski vs Max Holloway 3
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Full Fight | Alexander Volkanvoski vs Max Holloway 3
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Kyte: It’s the Ortega thing — “I’m fine being down here; I’ll find something.”
Nicksick: And then some well-timed takedowns too where, “I’ve got 90 seconds left and for you to find a submission on me in 90 seconds is damn-near impossible, so I’m gonna seal these rounds up, put some ground-and-pound on you, inflict some damage.”
For me, I don’t know why — and maybe I end up eating my words — but I feel like it’s gonna be a pretty clean night for Volkanovski.
One Coaching Curiosity
Kyte: Okay, so what’s the one curiosity point here for you?
Nicksick: I think you touched on it already — the health of Volk. What Volkanovski do we see coming back after a year off? How does he look?
RELATED: Volkanovski Backstage Interview | Lopes Backstage Interview
I think we’re gonna see a vintage performance from Volkanovski; I really do. Maybe that’s me being optimistic for him, but that is my genuine curiosity is which version of Volk are we gonna see: the vintage one or the one we saw the last two fights?
Kyte: I couldn’t agree more.
I can’t believe him to all of sudden be incapable of hanging with these guys. I think everything with Topuria was too quick and trying to prove too much against a super-confident, super-talented guy. You’ve got to be dialed all the way in to beat that guy, and I just can’t believe that he’s all of a sudden incapable of being that guy again.
Nicksick: I’m with you. I’m with you.
Kyte: The other thing for me is can Diego Lopes just keep riding this?
It’s funny that it’s happening just after March Madness because you see teams go on these runs, so is he someone that is just locked into that zone where maybe he doesn’t get him out of there in the first 90 seconds, but it turns into the Ortega fight where I’ve roughed you up enough in the first round to where you’re now not the same guy, not the same threat.
Nicksick: Yeah, the momentum swings to your side early, you got the band playing, and the confidence is huge.
And you’re right — I think what he carries into this fight more than anything is the unwavering confidence, which he has every right to feel that way.
Kyte: 100 percent! There has been nothing in two years that has made him question himself. Now can he go in there, have a good first two minutes that elevates him, drops Volk a little, and it just becomes a tidal wave, an avalanche.
It’s so interesting.
Nicksick: Yeah, man. It’s a fascinating fight.
UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes took place live from Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 12, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!