Alexander
Volkanovski was admittedly in danger in his title fight against
Diego
Lopes.
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Volkanovski and Lopes clashed for the vacant featherweight title in
the main event at UFC
314 on Saturday at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida. While
Lopes had his moments, Volkanovski appeared to be in his prime at
36 years of age while cruising to a unanimous decision win.
However, Volkanovski admitted that it wasn’t exactly an easy night
at the office for him. “The Great” lost vision in his left eye due
to a from a punch by Lopes. While Volkanovski isn’t sure when it
happened, it was most likely an uppercut from Lopes in the fourth
round that had the Australian clutching his eye.
“I completely lost vision in my left eye,” Volkanovski told Main Event TV. “It was a good shot and I just
could not see. I was trying to get it back and it was completely
gone. Slowly come back a little bit… I could at least see a little
blur, which helped. So when it was nothing, [I thought] ‘Oh s—t
this ain’t good.’ Then a little blur made it a little bit better to
understand the distance and stuff like that. And then it came back
a little towards the end.”
Lopes mounted a five-fight winning streak, beating the likes of
Dan Ige
and Brian
Ortega, to earn his title shot. Meanwhile, Volkanovski bounced
back from back-to-back knockout losses with a victory in his 10th
straight UFC title fight.