Diego Lopes Forced to Feel ‘Shame’ After Miscalculated Move Costs Alexander Volkanovski UFC 314 Fight

The UFC veteran commentator Jon Anik, along with DC and Joe Rogan, saw everything that unfolded on Saturday night at the Kaseya Center in Miami. The intense fight for title between Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes—the 36-year-old Volk, proving everyone wrong. Not to mention, a reclaim of the featherweight belt while breaking curses left and right. And unfortunately, the scores too. Eventually, the frustration that kicked in at Sean Shelby’s scoring. 

The other judges saw Volk’s dominance on the octagon, but Sean Shelby thought otherwise. And, of course, Anik was not going to stay silent about it. He reprimanded Lopes for not taking a good chance he had of gaining dominance on ‘The Great.’

While speaking to MMA Fighting, he said, “I think there’s an argument for 50-45 Volkanovski based upon my rewatch and my sort of research in a retroactive way into the scoring. Here’s the thing, if I could just say this in 20 seconds, the biggest punch of the fight was landed in round 4, and I would say, respectfully, shame on Diego Lopes for not following up. But Volk did land twice as many strikes in Round 4.”

He further added, “I guess now I can understand why Shel would have scored that round for him, but I guess the way I’m saying if you land the biggest strike of the fight and you come somewhat close to maybe putting the guy away, is that not your round? But yeah, I mean, I gave 1, 2, 3, and 5 to Volk.”

Jon Anik respectfully says shame on Diego Lopes for not following up after landing a big shot on Volkanovski:

“The biggest punch of the fight was landed in Round 4, and I would say, respectfully, shame on Diego Lopes for not following up.”

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— Red Corner MMA (@RedCorner_MMA) April 19, 2025

What happened was that Anik had said that Lopes ought to do something at the end of Round 3  because he was in danger of being down 3-0. This is when, as per Daniel Cormier, Sean Shelby and Maynard were staring daggers at him, but Anik stuck to his point. He said, “I know what I see. …”

Volkanovski beat the odds in the mega title fight and became the first fighter older than 35 to win a belt under 170 lbs. Volk used his superior cardio and speed to win a score of 48–47, 49–46, and 49–46 from the judges. Does not look too controversial, right? But during the recap, Joe Rogan said, “Sean Shelby needs to get drug—tested.” This is because Shelby scored the fight 2-1 for Lopes after round 3.

However, former referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy disagreed with DC, Rogan, and Anik on this matter. He thinks Lopes did take away Round 2.

John McCarthy disagreed with the commentator panel’s decision on scoring

The Aussie held his ground exponentially for 5 grueling rounds at UFC 314  and showed relentless cardio. The 30-year-old Lopes, despite his grit, could not match up to the 36-year-old. However, Round 2 saw a little disagreement between the two judges and the commentator panel. Lopes floored Volkanovski, making judges Sal D’Amato and Derek Cleary award the round to the Brazilian.

 Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier did not agree with this decision at all. However, Former UFC referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy spoke on the Weighing In podcast and disagreed with the commentator’s perspective. He said: “I know Rogan and DC thought Volk won the second round—no, no, no. A push, like backing someone into the cage, and getting knocked on your a-s—those are two completely different things.”

He explained, “Look, I thought the first round was clear—Alexander Volkanovski won it. The second? He was winning until he got knocked down, and that’s where he lost the round. In the third round, he comes back and wins. The fourth round? You’ve got to give that to Diego Lopes. So when it came down to the fifth, I thought Volk won that one.” So the question remains, did Diego Lopes take the 2nd round or did it belong to Alexander Volkanovski? What do you think?

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