Xtreme Courture bantamweight Gustavo Lopez is one of the few American fighters making the trip to compete for Oktagon MMA, and he returns to the promotion this weekend at Oktagon 47 in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Having made some extreme weight cuts in the past, including dropping from 157 to 135lbs on a day’s notice — “when I fought Merab [Dvalishvili], when I got into the UFC, was a weight cut like that” — Lopez made the trip to Slovakia a little early, he told Cageside Press recently.
It’s his third fight with Oktagon, which he points out “looks just like the UFC. It looks exactly like the UFC. Their production is incredible.”
The first time he fought for the company was on short notice. He won an interim belt nevertheless. “I walked out in the stadium, and I was like ‘wow. It looks like the UFC.’ They put a lot of work on it. I’ve been really blessed to in such a great place, good management that got me in this position to be one of the heads of all these promotions.”
Lopez recently signed another four-fight deal with the company, and has two more fights to go. “Get a couple more wins, and get back to the title.”
Looking to bounce back from a loss in a title unification bout, Lopez says he doesn’t necessarily feel anything went wrong. “I don’t think anything went wrong. I think we fight with little gloves, and anything can happen.”
“They’re saying some stuff about the guy juicing and doing some stuff like that, so who knows if that was a factor. But just got clipped. Just got clipped. Small gloves, and we throw hard, so it happens. I didn’t take it that hard. It sucks of course, losses always sucks, but it made me think of what’s more important, just my health and my mind, making sure everything feels great, so I’ve been focusing on that.”
The loss is, however, fueling Lopez in terms of motivation against Oktagon 47 opponent Beno Adamia.
“Any time you get a loss you want to get out there and get that W back and get on that win streak. I’m going to go out there and just put pressure on this guy,” he stated.
Watch our full interview with Oktagon 47’s Gustavo Lopez above.
