Diego
Lopes recently shared details about his move to Mexico, where
he has now found a new home.
Having started training jiu-jitsu very early in his career, Lopes
made his MMA debut at the age of 17 and fought five times within
the span of a year. However, things weren’t going well for Lopes
academically, forcing him to chose between studying and
working.
So when someone approached him with a job in Mexico as a jiu-jitsu
instructor, Lopes couldn’t refuse — although he had no idea about
the culture or language of that country. At 19 years of age, Lopes
left his home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for Puebla, Mexico. The
Portuguese-speaking Lopes also had initial trouble communicating
with his students, forcing him to quickly learn Spanish.
“School wasn’t going well for me,” Lopes recently said on UFC
Connected. “One day my mom said, ‘Either you work or you study.
What do you want to do?’ But I wanted to keep fighting to stay on
the path. She asked, ‘What will you do?’ I said, ‘I want to be a
fighter.’ One day this guy arrived at our gym. He approached me and
asked, ‘Do you want to go to Mexico?’ And to be honest, I didn’t
even know where Mexico was. I had no idea what language they spoke.
I had no idea what this was all about, other than that they wanted
me to teach. So I said, ‘Yes, I’ll go.’ Imagine arriving in a
country where you don’t speak the language, and you have to teach
classes but you don’t know how to communicate with the students.
That forced me to learn Spanish very quickly.”
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In Mexico, Lopes met
UFC flyweight Alessandro
Costa, who is also from Sao Paulo, and together they set up the
Brazilian Warriors gym. They then came across the
Lobo Gym MMA team consisting of the likes of Irena Aldana and
Alexa
Grasso, which is headed by Grasso’s uncle Francisco, who is
better known as “Pancho.” Lopes has since been working with the
Lobo Gym team.
Lopes was initially focused solely on coaching and was seen
ecstatic in Grasso’s corner as she won the flyweight title with an
upset win over Valentina
Shevchenko at UFC 285 in March 2023. Two months later, Lopes
got a short-notice call for a UFC debut against the undefeated
Movsar
Evloev. While he dropped a unanimous decision, Lopes was given
the majority of the credit for the fight being awarded “Fight of
the Night.” Lopes then rapidly rose to stardom with three
consecutive first-round finishes before beating Dan Ige on four
hours’ notice in a catchweight bout at UFC
303.
Lopes now takes on Brian
Ortega at UFC
306 on Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which is also the
UFC’s yearly tribute to Mexico. Having now found a family in Mexico
in his teammates, friends and coaches, the Brazilian is motivated
to put on a show every time he sees a Mexican flag.
“Here in Mexico I have a family. My family is my Mexican friends,
coaches, and training partners,” he said. “I’ve adapted very well
here. Meeting people here in Mexico that share the same dream
motivates me greatly. Every time I see a Mexican flag, [it] pushes
us to put on a great show to make the people proud.”