Diego Lopes To Fight Jean Silva In Noche UFC 3 Headliner

The third instalment of the annual Noche UFC to celebrate Mexican Independence Day will be headlined by a featherweight showdown between Diego Lopes and Jean Silva on September 13th in San Antonio, Texas.

The Noche UFC event had originally been intended to be a pay-per-view show held in Mexico, but was switched to become UFC Fight Night 259 in Texas after the original venue at a new arena in Guadalajara fell through due to construction delays.

The 30-year-old Lopes enters into the fight off the back of an unsuccessful attempt to win the vacant featherweight title back in April, losing out by unanimous decision to Alexander Volkanovski.

Prior to that Lopes had been on a five-fight winning streak, beating the likes of Brian Ortega, Dan Ige and Sodiq Yusuff over the past couple of years.

Now Lopes will take on another fighter who, like him, has made a big impact in the division in a short space of time in the 28-years-old Silva.

Silva only arrived in the UFC from the Contender Series at the start of 2024, yet he’s already gone 5-0 in the promotion, finishing all of his fights inside the distance against the likes of Bryce Mitchell, Bogdan Baghdasaryan, Drew Dober and Charles Jourdain.

At one stage there had been hopes that the event would be headlined by featherweight champ Volanovski defending his title in a rematch with Yair Rodriguez, but while Lopes vs. Silva doesn’t pack the same punch in terms of star power, it has to be said that this is a fantastic stylistic match-up that fight fans will certainly be looking forward to.