UFC 325: Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski on Diego Lopes rematch, City Kickboxing relationship and retirement talk

Alexander Volkanovski doesn’t care that people seem to be trying to talk his retirement into existence.

The UFC featherweight champion admits he has more yesterdays than tomorrows in his mixed martial arts career, but as he prepares to defend his belt on home soil in Sydney in February, the two-time division champion says it’s not a line of thinking that he started.

“I guess you don’t blame them for thinking it, right? That’s what I’m saying. A lot of people like, I don’t care.

“I can see why they’re thinking it. I’m 37 years old, so, they’re going to throw it out there, but that’s not the plan,” he told the Herald.

“Obviously, you never know, you’re going to take it as you go, but I’m planning on going out there and I reckon I can make this one look easy, and then maybe we can do a quick turnaround, and then we’ll see what happens then.”

Volkanovski will put his belt on the line against Mexican Diego Lopes in the main event of UFC 235 in Sydney on February 1.

It’s a rematch of their clash for the vacant belt in April, which the Australian won by unanimous decision. It will be Volkanovski’s first fight in Sydney since 2017 when he beat Kiwi Shane Young by decision. He has had four bouts with the promotion since.

In preparation for the bout, Volkanovski will reassemble his team of coaches to work alongside head trainer Joe Lopez at Windang’s Freestyle Fighting Gym, including Kiwi Brad Riddell.

Volkanovski was a regular at Auckland’s City Kickboxing leading up to and during his first title reign.

While the two teams still work closely together, they prefer to keep their camps closer to home now.

“I just bring everyone over to Freestyle Fighting Gym. We bring all the bodies we need and we all just obviously connect and stay in touch,” Volkanovski said.

While there is plenty of talent on the local scene to work with, the reigning featherweight champion has been working with No 14-ranked lightweight Mauricio Ruffy, who is also booked on the Sydney card.

Volkanovski’s booking against Lopes raised plenty of eyebrows given the featherweight division has at least two other athletes with claims to a title shot, with No 1-ranked Movsar Evloev and No 4 Lerone Murphy voicing their frustrations at being overlooked.

No 2-ranked Lopes claimed a stoppage win over Ruffy’s teammate Jean Silva, currently ranked 11, in his most recent bout, which was enough to see the matchmakers give him another chance at the belt.

Volkanovski said he’d had an indication that the promotion wanted to see how the bout between Lopes and Silva played out, but admitted he thought that was more out of interest for a potential Silva clash, should he have gotten past Lopes.

“You never know behind the scenes, you don’t know if people have [been] denying fights and what not and yeah, you just don’t know the full story,” Volkanovski said.

“With Diego, you know, he doesn’t turn down any fights. He fights anyone anywhere, and obviously he’s been rewarded with this fight, so, yeah, credit to him. You be that guy, you get these opportunities.”

UFC 325, Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, February 1, 2026

Main card

Main event: Alexander Volkanovski (c) v Diego Lopes (2) for the UFC featherweight championship

Lightweight: Dan Hooker (6) v Benoit Saint Denis (8)

Lightweight: Rafael Fiziev (9) v Mauricio Ruffy (14)

Heavyweight: Tai Tuivasa (12) v Tallison Teixeira (15)

Light heavyweight: Jimmy Crute v Dustin Jacoby

Preliminary card

Lightweight: Rongzhu v Quillan Salkilld

Heavyweight: Serghei Spivac (7) v Ante Delija (9)

Welterweight: Jonathan Micallef v Oban Elliott

Featherweight: Kaan Ofli v Yizha

Early prelims

Light heavyweight: Junior Tafa v Billy Elekana

Middleweight: Cam Rowston v Cody Brundage

Middleweight: Jacob Malkoun v Torrez Finney

Road To UFC final match-ups will also appear on the card, including New Zealand’s Aaron Tau and Lawrence Lui.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.