Volkanovski coach reveals champ may have broken his hand early against Lopes

Alexander Volkanovski not only beat Diego Lopes on Saturday night at UFC 314, he did it with a potentially broken hand.

Volkanovski proved he was still the best featherweight not named Ilia Topuria by handling Lopes for five rounds, earning a 49-46, 49-46, and 48-47 unanimous decision to take back the 145 pound belt (video highlights here). He managed to do that despite his age and despite bunging up his hand early in the fight.

Volk’s coach Joe Lopez discussed the injury in a new interview with Submission Radio.

“He might have broke his hand, we still gotta get that X-ray,” Lopez said. “He did hurt his hand … It was earlier in the fight. Alex didn’t say anything about it [at the time], just at the end he was just saying, ‘I think I busted my hand.’”

“I can’t remember which round. But yeah, he’s got a bit of a sore foot and just the bumps and bruises after having a five round war with a warrior.”

Lopez gave full credit to Lopes for forcing them out of a wrestling-heavy gameplan.

“After that first round, Diego channeled his inner Jose Aldo because man, his hips were on fire,” Lopez said. “We couldn’t get him back down. He did not wanna go back down there … We wanted to take Diego down or get him against the fence because he is very dangerous. He’s very explosive, and you could see he’s super tough. Alex put some big shots on him, and he he wore them like they were nothing.”

The biggest part of this win is it gets Volkanovski off that rough two-fight losing skid that had everyone questioning his ability to still compete at the top of the division.

“Everyone was writing Volk off after his losses, and we knew Volk wasn’t ready to finish,” he said. “It was just unfortunate, with the Islam and then the Ilia fight. But if you know Volk and you’re close to him, you know that he’s a lot better than what he did in those last two losses that he had. And it was just good that he could prove to everyone else in the world who he is and how good he actually is.”

“He’s gotta be cemented there as one of the GOATS of the featherweights now forever.”

Now Lopez is already looking forward to who their next opponent may be, and while he and Volkanovski believe it should be the undefeated Movsar Evloev, they know the UFC might not be interested.

“Realistically, [Evloev] does deserve it,” Lopez said. “But there was no talk of him at all at the presser. There was no real talk of him at all. Everyone was talking about Yair [Rodriguez] and everybody else except him.”

“It’s a bit sad, that, I guess he’s not very exciting and he doesn’t bring much to the table, but he’s unbeaten and he’s on a run. If anyone deserves a shot, it’s actually him. But you know, it’s up to the powers that be. We were supposed to get that shot with Ilia [Topuria] and they gave it to Max [Holloway]. So you just never know how or what the powers above us are gonna tell us, who we’re gonna fight.”