Even on a bad day, Diego Lopes looks at his best. His sweep of bangs falls just into place, often covering one of his big brown eyes. When he smiles, which is often, the dimples in his cheeks warm the room. And when he speaks, it’s in a soft-spoken manner, as if he is very pleased to be in the conversation, whatever it may be.
Jean Silva, by comparison?
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Why, he’s a monster!
Maybe feral is taking things too far, but certainly untame. He has the beard. And the eyes. At times he looks a little possessed, which is what got his last opponent, Bryce Mitchell, all up in arms. Mitchell is one of those who imagines a gleaming halo hovering over his head before he makes the walk, while Silva throws his head back — as if hearing voices — when asked if his fellow Fighting Nerds will be by his side when he faces Lopes at Noche UFC on Saturday night in San Antonio.
“For sure,” he says, battling what appear to be competing internal thoughts. “Sorry, I’m just really happy. But yeah, they’re all going to be here.”
Silva gradually darkens into what he becomes on fight night throughout the week. Or at least, that’s what his trainer and coach Pablo Sucupira recently told me. Normally a very happy-go-lucky (if slightly mischievous) soul, he gets feisty as the hour nears. By the time he hits the Octagon, he’s worked himself into an emotional froth. He calls that version “Lord.” You might see laughter and tears simultaneously, especially when he’s sporting the Fighting Nerds trademark glasses in the post-fight interview.
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Merking people has a way of getting into your feels, you see.
In the five UFC fights since Silva broke in on “Dana White’s Contender Series,” he has gone 5-0 with five straight finishes. He commands attention, too. He had the crowd chanting “F*** Brights Meeshell” at the press conference for his last fight, and at times it looked like he was merely toying with Mitchell during their bout before tapping him out with a ninja choke in the second round. After getting that victory he received his third post-fight bonus in a row, which represents a considerable uptick in lifestyle for a guy who grew up without a lot of material possessions in Brazil.
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Though he speaks but a broken version of English, when asked what he’s been doing with the money he looks at his wrist.
“I bought a Rolex GMT,” he says, holding it up. “And I bought a Richard Mille, and a Porsche Panama, and gave my wife a car. Oops — that’s all the money!”
Looks like he’ll need to keep collecting bonuses if he wants to keep pace with the buying sprees. Saturday night will be his first UFC main event. As a Brazilian fighting on a card celebrating Mexican Independence Day against a Mexican citizen in the heart of Texas, they won’t exactly be toasting him along the ol’ San Antone River.
Silva, who’s ranked No. 10 in the UFC’s featherweight rankings, is being cast in the role of party-crasher. The No. 2-ranked Lopes — who wears a cowboy hat and Southwestern ponchos, and sometimes works on his wrestling just up the Red River in Oklahoma — is the centerpiece of this show. The crowd will be his on Saturday night.
Jean Silva will have his hands full against Diego Lopes (pictured) on Saturday night.
(Mike Roach via Getty Images)
“They’re going to be on his side,” Silva says in agreement. “Most of the fans are going to be there for him, but it’s pretty cool. It’s going to be incredible.
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“Despite the fact that I just don’t like him and we don’t get along, he’s a fantastic guy. He is a great fighter. He fought for the title. I mean everyone in the UFC loves him and I just see that the whole world loves him. So he’s got to be a good person, right?”
Silva and his team know firsthand about these kinds of roles. He just watched his fellow Brazilian Nerds Caio Borralho and Mauricio Ruffy compete in enemy territory last week in France against French fighters. It was a partisan crowd in Paris that cheered as the Nerds fell.
Now, a week later, he gets his chance to avenge his teammates.
“That has got nothing to do with it,” Silva says. “I’m fighting for myself, my family, my wife, and for my love of fighting. But on the other hand, my wind is going to calm the storm a little bit [for the team], so it’s like there’s a storm going on right now and I’m going to calm it and bring it back to my brothers.”
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One word Silva likes to use is “fate.”
“I’ve said this in every interview, and I’ll never get tired of saying it — with the whole UFC roster, Dana [White] and Hunter [Campbell] chose me to be the headliner on this card. And especially Dana, everything that he has been through [and experienced], he knows what he’s doing. So, I couldn’t be happier and more ready for this.”
Given that Lopes is ranked so much higher that Silva, the risk falls more to him. After Ilia Topuria tossed aside the featherweight title, Lopez fought Alexander Volkanovski for the vacant belt at UFC 314 in April, losing a decision. Should he lose again to Silva, he’d have a long way back to contention.
In that same scenario, if Silva were to beat Lopes, theoretically he could leapfrog the field in joining the ranks of Lerone Murphy and Movsar Evloev as the featherweight division’s top contenders.
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“I’ve been correcting everyone who asks me this,” he says. “It’s not if I’m going to win — I’ve already won. I’m already the champion. I’m going to come in there and just materialize it. And you know what I got to say is that I trust Dana and Hunter, and if they believe I’m the next one, then I’ll be more than ready. But I believe in what they do.”
Lopes will hear a roar on Saturday night, just as he did at Noche UFC in September 2024 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, when he dominated Brian Ortega. San Antonio will be expecting a big encore.
But the wild man is starting to emerge. There’s a little devil in Silva’s eyes as he draws nearer to his first headlining gig, as he morphs into the thing that he becomes on fight night.
“I’m already feeling it,” he says. “I think this is how it feels to be drunk, and I’m just drunk with joy. I signed a poster with my face on it [for the first time], so yeah, just happy.”
