Diego Lopes is a “beast” and “proper gentleman”, says Paddy Pimblett teammate who trained with the title challenger

Diego Lopes and Nathan Fletcher have honed skills with one another over the years and the latter recently shed light on what those experiences were like. While Fletcher trains at Next Generation MMA Liverpool with big names like Paddy Pimblett, the former also gets in work with other prominent names in the sport when the UFC competitor’s on the road training.

When discussing his training anecdotes with Diego Lopes, Fletcher said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“Yeah, Diego Lopes is a beast and he’s such a cool guy as well. For somebody who’s doing so well in the sport and got a lot of momentum at the minute, he’s such a humble guy. Do you know what I mean? Diego was actually one of the coaches on the other team [on Fletcher’s season of The Ultimate Fighter]. He was with Team [Alexa] Grasso on the show and I was a little bit gutted that I didn’t end up with them because Diego’s, again, one of my favorite fighters to watch.”

“So from a fan point of view, I was a little bit upset I didn’t get picked for Team Grasso. But it all worked out well because I ended up still building a decent relationship with a lot of the guys on their team as well. So when I went out to Vegas last year to make my UFC debut, I ended up staying for a few weeks in Vegas and bumped into Diego again and he just invited us down to the gym.”

“He was very hospitable. He had me and me teammate Adam Cullen there. Yeah, just a super humble, welcoming guy, very skilled…But yeah, I’ve not got enough good things to say about Diego. He’s a proper gentleman and a great fighter as well.”

Diego Lopes claps back at critics of UFC 325 title shot

Diego Lopes will once again be throwing down with Alexander Volkanovski for featherweight gold and the former has responded to the flak he has been receiving ahead of that UFC 325 effort. Lopez vs. Volk 2 will transpire on January 31st in Sydney, Australia with many fans being confused that Volkanovski wouldn’t be fighting like Movsar Evloev or Lerone Murphy. This considering not just the respective runs of those referenced fighters but that Lopes lost to Volk at UFC 314 in April.

Lopes responded to the sizable volume of detractors about this rematch being booked and posted a message to his social media that saw Diego Lopes say on his personal Instagram,

“My face when I saw everyone crying [crying laughing emojis]. Sitting around, he won’t give you a title fight. Get to work and stop whining on social media.”