Jean Silva has made the case for why he’s now looking to fight Diego Lopes as he plots a course towards title contention in the UFC’s featherweight division.
“I want to make it clear that this fight did not come to me,” Silva said on his YouTube channel regarding his interest in facing Lopes. “Of course, I think it’s a great fight for my game. I think it’s perfect. I study the guy’s game a lot, and I think it’s a great fight for me to compete for the belt later. But I’ll be honest, what do I think?
“I think Evloev is going to fight Aaron Pico who just entered the UFC. I don’t know if the UFC wants Evloev as champion. So maybe this is the opportunity to get rid of him, losing to Pico?
It’s going to be Yair Rodriguez vs. Volkanovski, and then it’s just me and Diego left. That’s what I think, maybe the UFC will do. I’m not sure, but in my view, I think that’s what makes sense now. It may happen. A good fight. A fight that I think would be incredible.”
Lopes is coming off an unsuccessful attempt to win the vacant 145lb title, losing out to Alexander Volkanovski back in April, but he’d been on an impressive five-fight winning streak prior to that, defeating the likes of Brian Ortega, Dan Ige and Sodiq Yusuff along the way.
That leaves him ranked No.2 in the division, still far above the No.11 placed Silva. However, there’s an undeniable buzz surrounding the 28-year-old right now after kicking off his UFC run with three stoppage victories last year, before adding another two so far already this year with a 1st round TKO finish of Melsik Baghdasaryan being followed up with a ninja choke stoppage of Bryce Mitchell last month.
As such Silva believes there’s a case to be made that he should be given the chance to fight Lopes, regardless of their respective rankings.
“If he is well ahead of me in the rankings, for Diego to accept fighting me, he will probably say, ‘If I beat Jean, I will fight for the belt,’” Silva said. “That’s what he will ask the UFC, the UFC will say yes, but he won’t beat me. As long as he is with me, he won’t win. Forget it.”
It’s not an entirely outlandish idea from Silva when you consider that Steve Erceg was granted a flyweight title shot last year despite only being ranked No.10 at the time, and he had far less hype and momentum than Silva currently has.
That being said, there’s more options available at 145lbs, and with the likes of the undefeated Lerone Murphy being on an eight-fight winning streak in the UFC so far and currently ranked higher than him at No.8, it’s entirely possible that’s a fight the UFC would look to make instead for either Silva or Lopes.
