Diego Lopes reacts to Alexa Grasso's disappointing loss at UFC 306: “Alexa froze”

Diego Lopes experienced the best and worst moments of fight night at UFC 306.

The featherweight contender's fight couldn't have gone any better, as he won a convincing unanimous decision over top-ranked Brian Ortega in the main event on Saturday. Unfortunately for Lopes, he suffered a major disappointment, as one fight later he found himself in Alexa Grasso's corner, acting as a coach for her flyweight championship loss to Valentina Shevchenko.

Grasso lost to Shevchenko by a lackluster decision, and her poor performance marked a disappointing end to her trilogy with “Bullet.” At the press conference the night after the fight, Lopes was unable to say exactly what went wrong for his teammate.

“I think Alexa was frozen and didn't fight tonight,” Lopes said through a Spanish translator. “Valentina didn't do much either. What did she do? She just took her to the ground and tried to control her there. She didn't do any damage, she didn't do anything either.”

Lopes' demeanor was evident in his tempering his celebrations at the press conference following Grasso's championship loss. However, it wasn't just the change in flyweight title that dampened Lopes' mood.

At UFC 306, which was planned as a celebration of Mexican Independence Day weekend, several Mexican-born fighters fell, including Daniel Zellhuber, Irene Aldana and clear favorite Yazmin Jauregui. Lopes would have liked to see his countrymen share in his success.

“I'm a little upset for all the Mexicans who lost the fight tonight,” Lopes said. “Of course I'm happy with my win, but I would have liked to see more Mexicans win. But this is the toughest sport in the world. You can't always get what you want, so yeah, I'm a little upset about that.”

Lopes has no regrets about having to prepare for Grasso's title fight so quickly after the conclusion of his own fight, and he looks forward to revisiting Grasso's performance once the madness following UFC 306 has died down.

“I really want to support everyone on my team, so I made sure I was there for Alexa,” Lopes said. “Unfortunately, we didn't win tonight and I wasn't able to talk to her because I was brought here with all my media commitments, but I look forward to talking to her afterward.”