UFC featherweight Yair Rodriguez might have come out of UFC 314 as the biggest winner on the night as he turned back the debuting Patricio Pitbull and possibly set himself up for a title shot.
Rodriguez (20-5) defeated Pitbull by decision on the main card adding a former Bellator champion to his resume. For Rodriguez the future points to gold, and if it’s his way, in his home country of Mexico.
“Volkanovski has (fought) all around the world. He hasn’t fought in Mexico. Guadalajara’s is not super high elevation. I think it makes sense for UFC to bring a huge event, numbered event, in Guadalajara,” Rodriguez told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.
“I thinlk Volkanovski will be able to run it back with me. He will be happy to do that.”
The two fought at UFC 290 in 2023. Rodriguez was the interim featherweight champion and met Volkanovski in Las Vegas to unify the titles. Volkanovski took the win and the undisputed title by TKO that night.
It’s not the only fight that’s out there for Rodriguez. Should the featherweight title shot not be in play for his next fight another one popped up during the press conference on Thursday. Rodriguez accused Lopes and his team of jumping teammate Marco Beltran in some kind of dispute between the camps.
Rodriguez was fine talking about it, but declined to give much detail.
“If you’re in my position right now the beef can stay aside for now. The only thing that I’m looking for right now is fighting for that belt. What happened? I think when the moment comes we will talk more about it, but for now I just want to focus on that title fight,” he said.
Even if the title fight is next he’s not going to let Lopes off the hook. The featherweight believes the two will have to fight eventually.
“It will have to happen at some point. I actually talked to my friend, Marco Beltran, I told him ‘I got you bro. I got this one for you.’ I’ll make sure, at some point, whenever I have the chance to fight him, I got him for you,” he said.
“As you guys seen we were able to take pictures together. I was able to play it cool for as long as I could keep it cool, but the guy was trying to be disrespectful in the press conference. I’m not able to f*cking take it anymore.”
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Yair Rodriguez above.
