When Yair Rodriguez branded Diego Lopes a “culon,” and the Spanish translator went “Ohhhh,” we knew that fans were in for an ugly show. Started initially with the UFC 314 featherweight title challenger rubbishing the chances of facing ‘El Pantera’ at UFC 320 owing to his losing streak, the argument soon took a personal turn as the top two 145fers almost got into a brawl. “How many losses does he have in a row? How many? Two? That’s not enough for a title fight,” Lopes initially said. And that’s when the drama exploded!

“Pu–y. Didn’t you jump Marco [Beltran] between you and your team? Didn’t you jump Marco with your team? Yes or no? I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you this to your f—-ng face. You’re going to pay for Marco.” Rodriguez said in Spanish. For the unversed, Marco Beltran is a former UFC fighter and close friend of Rodriguez. A few years back, he fought Lopes and was submitted with a heel hook.

“Talk about my team, and the same thing that happened to him will happen to you,” Lopes responded. “You threatened her, you threatened her. You threatened a girl, and you’re going to pay,” the Brazilian alleged that Rodriguez threatened a female member of Lopes’ team. “Don’t twist up words,” Rodriguez concluded. And all the while, Alexander Volkanovski was watching in amusement, even joking with Michael Chandler about it. But that wasn’t all. What many may have missed was that the duo had another heated confrontation immediately after the bout was over.

Right after the presser was over, the title contender and the main eventer got up in each other’s grills again. And this time around, things were much hairier. Volkanovski, who is set to fight Lopes for the featherweight title at UFC 314 this weekend, recounted the whole affair and why he was petrified at Rodriguez and Lopes’ second verbal exchange.

“At one point I’m just like ‘Look, don’t fight each other, if someone gets injured I might not have an opponent.’ As you could see I was on standby. At the start I was like– I could see nothing would happen. But they end up having another chat after. I don’t know if you’ve seen the second little altercation they sorta had. Not altercation, but words they had. They got a bit closer so I’m like ‘I better make sure nothing happens ‘cuz I wanna make sure I have a dance partner tomorrow night,” Volkanovski told Daniel Cormier on the weigh-in morning show

While the security had managed to keep distance between them the first time around, Rodriguez and Lopes got within touching, and more importantly, hitting distance of each other. While a couple of security guards were between them, if they had started swinging, one of them could have easily landed a punch on the other, jeopardizing their fights.

And indeed Volkanovski could be seen worriedly observing both men closely during their second confrontation, ready to step in if things got violent. Thankfully, both men had better sense than to escalate to the Aussie’s relief. After all, Volkanovski wouldn’t want to spoil a fight as important as this one.

Why UFC 314 could be a career-defining chance for Alexander Volkanovski?

To say that the Lopes fight is important for Alexander Volkanovski would be an understatement. The once unbeatable Aussie is on a remarkably bad run of form. Moreover, he has been knocked out twice in the last seventeen months. We’ve seen all-time greats go over the hill before, and the former champ’s recent form does follow the format, as Chael Sonnen pointed out on his ‘Good Guy/ Bad Guy’ show on ESPNMMA.

“Volkanovski’s name popping up with the right kind of loss, and I’m talking about if he gets laid out or he gets stopped, which is Lopes’ greatest path to victory by the way, people are going to be calling for retirement. That’s going to give him four losses out of his last five.”

“Guys like you and I talk about pressure all the time, but we forget to explain it. The reason why that matters is pressure creates fatigue. And in a sport that’s built around exhaustion, you don’t want to be the one to get tired first. I think that Volk is not only fighting for a world title, I think he’s fighting for his career,” Sonnen said.

Volkanovski is in phenomenal shape for this fight. But he is 36, and looks chinny, both of which are terrible signs in a sport as unforgiving as MMA. And Sonnen is right. Despite everything he has done in the sport, if Volkanovski gets stopped by Lopes, which the Brazil-born dynamo is more than capable of, the Aussie will be written off by many fans.

This fight will probably determine the course of the rest of Volkanovski’s career. What do you think about Alexander Volkanovski’s thoughts about Rodriguez and Lopes’ confrontation?