“Paid Without Fighting” – Dana White Offered Payday Even for Rejecting UFC 303 Fight as Diego Lopes Summarizes “Madness” in Attempt to Save PPV

#14 ranked featherweight Diego Lopes was booked to face #3 ranked featherweight superstar Brian Ortega on the co-main event of UFC 303 last night. However, things went horribly wrong before the bout. Lopes came into UFC 303 on an impressive run, having stopped his previous three opponents in the first round.

And a win over Ortega, who has only lost to historically great champions, Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway (and to Yair Rodriguez in 2022 due to a freak injury), would have allowed him to crash into the top 10 (possibly even top 5, depending upon his performance), and the title picture. However, the bout fell apart, and Ortega was replaced by another fighter entirely, as explained by Lopes in a series of tweets after UFC 303.

Diego Lopes opens up about UFC 303 fiasco

Brian Ortega has plans to move up to the 155-pound lightweight division shortly. Perhaps because he was bulking, ‘T-City’ couldn’t get his weight down below 151 pounds, and two days before the T-Mobile Arena event, it was announced that the bout had been moved to 155 pounds. However, things went from bad to worse as Ortega was forced to ultimately withdraw from the card as he fell ill. Three hours from the event, Dana White and Co. managed to rope in #13 ranked featherweight Dan Ige to replace Ortega.

In addition, because Ige had filled in last minute, he wasn’t in a position to cut weight and the bout was turned into a 165-pound catchweight clash. And Lopes took to Twitter to describe the ‘madness’ that went on behind the scenes prior to his UFC 303 fight.

“I’ll just summarize the madness that it all was. I accept the fight with 2 weeks to fight with number 3. change of category, 145,155, 165lbs. 3 hours before the event, they change my opponent, someone who had a 3 month camp without cutting weight,” he tweeted.

In addition, he revealed that he could have gotten “paid without fighting,” but chose to take on the challenge for one simple reason.

Anyone, anytime, anywhere: Diego Lopes

In addition, the Mexican revealed that the infamously stingy UFC was ready to pay him even if he chose to turn down the bout. However, being the true warrior that Lopes is, he didn’t even hesitate before agreeing to fight another opponent two weight classes above what he was expecting two days ago. “UFC gave us the option to not accept. I could have gotten paid without fighting. I could have said no to the fight. I was weighing 161lbs. but like I said, anyone, anytime, anywhere. In whatever weight,” Lopes wrote in another tweet.

In the end, the Mexican managed to out-strike and out-grapple his opponent to emerge victorious at the end of their three-round co-main event bout.  On the other hand, despite losing the bout, Ige only gained respect with his honorable showing despite the shortest of notices he took the fight on. Not to mention the added exposure and name recognition he got for fighting on the co-main event of a PPV card, a first for ’50k’. The fight was ultimately a win-win for both fighters, which is rare in combat sports.