Preview: Noche UFC ‘Lopes vs. Silva’

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It may be a “Noche UFC,” but the gap between this weekend’s Ultimate Fighting Championship card and the first two events to bear that title is colossal.

From the inaugural event in March of 2023 that featured a Mexican champ defending her title in a razor-close scrap with one of the greatest fighters of all time, to last fall’s landmark show at Sphere in Las Vegas, the first two Noches UFC felt momentous in their own way. In comparison to those two, UFC Fight Night 259, which goes down on Saturday in San Antonio, Texas, cannot help but seem like a bit of a letdown. It is a solid fight night card, no more and no less, with a fantastic main event atop a 14-fight slate that runs a bit hot-or-cold on paper.

Having said that, the UFC has adapted admirably to the litany of mishaps that befell this card since it was announced. When construction delays forced the event out of Guadalajara, Mexico, where it had been scheduled, the promotion moved the show to San Antonio, which has been awaiting the UFC’s return for several years—and just happens to be by far the largest majority Hispanic city in the U.S. The matchmakers bolstered that smart move even further by sticking Texan fighters, especially those of Latino descent, into just about every available matchup.

The result is a card that may not have the groundbreaking historical impact or megawatt multimedia dazzle of its predecessors, but should deliver much of the celebratory atmosphere, frenetic fights and cultural flavor fans have come to expect. Let us get on to the preview for UFC Fight Night 259, also known as Noche UFC:

Featherweights

Diego Lopes (26-7) vs. Jean Silva (16-2)

Odds: Silva (-270); Lopes (+220)

An already high-stakes clash between two young contenders has become a full-on pressure cooker. Lopes was already tasked with proving that his one-sided loss to Alexander Volkanovski in April was just a rough night at the office against an all-time great, and fair or not, after two of his teammates were humbled last Saturday in Paris, it is now incumbent on Silva to show that The Fighting Nerds—perhaps the hottest gym in the sport over the past two years—are still a force to be reckoned with.

Lopes is also the reason this is a suitable main event for Noche, rather than Noite UFC. The 30-year-old from Manaus in northeastern Brazil has trained and competed in Mexico for nearly his entire career, and the crowd that saw him dominate Brian Ortega at Sphere last October hailed him like on of their own.

As a fighter, Lopes is an offensive powerhouse with rare physical tools. He is tall and rangy for the division and a powerful, explosive athlete. Despite having impressive reach, he prefers to operate from well outside, bouncing into range with punch combinations and powerful kicks to all levels. His wrestling is calculated to create scrambles more than secure position, but while he can spend too much time on his back looking for offense, he is a dynamic submission threat.

After giving undefeated contender Movsar Evloev a serious run for his money in a short-notice debut in 2023, Lopes reeled off five straight wins in generally dominant fashion to earn the matchup against Volkanovski for the vacant title. That outing was concerning not so much because he lost—Volkanovski is arguably the greatest featherweight in MMA history, not too far past his prime—but because of how he lost. Bluntly, Lopes outclassed everywhere by the champ, and until he briefly came alive in Round 4, abandoned most of the tools that had brought him to that point. Lopes struggled to master the timing and distance against the shortest fighter in the Top 10, was pushed around in the clinch, and ate numerous big shots on the feet that might have flattened a lot of good featherweights.

Silva has not had to face that kind of setback, or much adversity at all, on his way to Saturday’s headliner. Since graduating from Dana White's Contender Series two years ago, “Lord” has has blown through all five of his foes inside the distance, four of them within the first two rounds. Even as he has progressed into matchups with longtime fringe contender Drew Dober, then Top 10 featherweight Bryce Mitchell, the 28-year-old has been breathtakingly dominant.

Even the manner in which Silva wins conveys his confidence level. In outstriking knockout artists such as Dober and Charles Jourdain, then throttling a grappling wiz like Mitchell on the ground, Silva displays a disdain for his opponents’ strengths, and a willingness to attack them directly, that is reminiscent of former featherweight champ Ilia Topuria, or even of Jon Jones.

While Silva is not as large as Lopes, and will probably give up significant reach, he is an even better athlete. He also tends to set up shop a pace or so outside his opponent’s range, then burst into the pocket to unload flurries of strikes. His clean technique and burly build mean that everything has big power behind it. Silva is more of a specialist than Lopes; while he has shown himself capable of handling things on the mat against good grapplers, he greatly prefers to keep things standing, and his takedown defense has been nearly impeccable thus far.

That sprawl-and-brawl approach should serve Silva well this weekend. While Lopes is a very dangerous striker in his own right, Silva should be capable of replicating just about everything Volkanovski did to make his life miserable in April. Lopes’ best path to victory is probably to catch Silva in transition on the ground and take his back or snare his neck, but he will have to brave a lot of firepower in order to find or create situations where he can do that.

The pick is for a fun, fast-paced, dynamic featherweight scrap to tilt further and further in Silva’s direction as the rounds go by. When or if Lopes becomes desperate to get things to the ground, Silva is well equipped to punish those efforts, and the prediction is that he gets it done by third-round TKO.



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Lopes vs. Silva
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Garcia vs. Gordon
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Luna vs. Le
The Prelims