The tension is palpable just days before the upcoming UFC pay-per-view event, full of stories coming from Miami. Former champion Alexander Volkanovski headlines this fight against Diego Lopes, who is making his title contention debut in this fight for the vacant featherweight title.
Providing featherweight action for UFC 314 is the former interim champion Yair Rodriguez against fellow two-division champion and Bellator legend Patricio Pitbull. In addition to Bryce Mitchell against Jean Silva, who will also meet at a UFC 314 press conference on Thursday.
Security tightened protocols, especially keeping a keen eye on Yair Rodriguez and Diego Lopes, who appeared to bear some intensity that might suggest a possible history of being potential foes in the 145-pound division.
When Lopes was asked about a fight with Rodriguez at UFC 316 in Guadalajara, Mexico if they both win on Saturday, he referred to Rodriguez’s recent losses; the reporter noted Rodriguez had lost twice to Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega.
Lopes said those losses didn’t matter, implying they were not enough to put Rodriguez back in title contention. Rodriguez then used some expletives in Spanish regarding Lopes, raising the intensity of the presser.
Rodriguez’s nasal lasciviousness caught the translator off guard for a moment. Beltran was Rodriguez’s teammate who squared off against Lopes in 2019, which Lopes won via a kneebar to defend his LUX title in Mexico.
Rodriguez had raised several questions about these comments, but the feeling is that there are some underlying issues between him and Lopes since they continued hurling insults back and forth on the microphone in Spanish.
Even when the UFC 314 press conference had wrapped up, the featherweights kept arguing while Alexander Volkanovski looked on. UFC security managed to intervene and prevent a scenario of the fighters fighting, who aren’t even going against one another this weekend.
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