When the UFC first revealed the official card for UFC Freedom 250, one fight that immediately jumped off the page was the opening bout between featherweights Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia.
When you talk about the most exciting fighters in the game, both Lopes and Garcia are right up there.
Lopes has won seven performance bonuses in nine UFC appearances, while seven of Garcia's eight UFC wins have been by knockout or TKO, so the odds of this featherweight bout being an absolute war are very high.
By opening up the UFC's White House card, both Lopes and Garcia have a lot of pressure on themselves to put on an amazing fight for the fans to kick off one of the biggest MMA cards of all time.
But given their aggressive fighting styles, there is no way this fight is going to be boring, as both men will surely be in the running to collect more bonuses in what should be an all-out war.
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DIEGO LOPES
Nickname: N/A
Fighting out of: Guadalajara, Mexico
Age: 31 | Height: 5-foot-11 | Weight: 145 pounds
Arm reach:72.5 inches | Leg reach: 42 inches
Stance: Orthodox
Background/style: Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Team/gym: Lobo Gym
MMA record: 27-8 | UFC record: 6-3
Average fight time: 11:58
Notable accomplishments/credentials: No. 2-ranked UFC featherweight; former 2x featherweight title challenger; four UFC finishes; seven UFC bonuses; Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt; former LUX featherweight champion.
Biggest strength/best technique: Lopes’ biggest strength is two-fold. One, his ability to finish the fight anywhere it goes is impressive, as he’s won fights in the UFC by highlight-reel knockout and slick submission. Two, his durability is something to behold, as Lopes has never been finished in the UFC despite fighting the best featherweights in the world since he joined the world’s leading MMA promotion in 2023.
Lopes’ meteoric rise to the top of the UFC featherweight division proves that if you finish fights, the UFC matchmakers will reward you. In only three years of being in the UFC, he has already fought for the belt twice. If he can win this fight against Garcia, he has said he'd be open to moving up in weight for a fight for the BMF belt, which lightweight star Charles Oliveira currently holds.
Signature win/moment: Although it was a loss, his UFC debut in 2023 against Movsar Evloev proved that he was an elite featherweight. Despite losing a decision, Lopes gave Evloev arguably his toughest test to date in the UFC, as he kept throwing up submissions off his back. It was a loss on paper, but it was a win in a way, too, because it showed just how dangerous he was.
After that loss to Evloev, Lopes racked up five straight wins to earn a UFC featherweight title shot against Alexander Volkanovski. He lost a decision in that fight, but after knocking out Jean Silva in a 2025 Fight of the Year candidate, he earned another title shot. He lost the rematch to Volkanovski as well, and two losses to the champ hurts. But because he’s such an exciting fighter, he continues to get massive opportunities like this one, where he fights Garcia at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House.
Key to victory: Lopes can win this fight standing or on the ground, but against someone heavy-handed like Garcia, why take the risk of standing and trading? The easiest path to victory for Lopes in this fight is to take Garcia to the ground, where he can use his BJJ black belt skills on his foe and submit him.
Of course, Lopes can also knock Garcia out, and there’s a very real chance that happens, as he is going to be chasing a bonus here on the White House lawn. But the clearest path to win is to take this fight to the mat and attempt to submit Garcia, in which case Lopes won’t have to worry about getting his chin checked.
What a win would mean: Lopes has already said in the lead-up to this bout that he is planning a callout of the UFC's current BMF titleholder for his next fight. That would be an absolutely amazing matchup between two of the most dangerous finishers on the UFC roster, but for that to happen, Lopes has to first take care of business against Garcia.
Win or lose, Lopes is always going to be a promotion favourite because he always says yes to every fight the UFC offers him. If he is interested in a BMF title fight against Oliveira, he has to go out there and make a statement against Garcia. If he does that, he could very well get his wish.
Watch UFC Freedom 250 on Sportsnet+
The UFC heads to the White House lawn for a night of fights in what promises to be one of the most unique sporting events in history. Watch UFC Freedom 250 on Sunday, June 14 with the seven-fight pay-per-view card available on Sportsnet+ starting at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.
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STEVE GARCIA
Nickname: Mean Machine
Fighting out of: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Age: 34 | Height: six-foot | Weight: 145 pounds
Arm reach:75 inches | Leg reach: 41 inches
Stance: Southpaw
Background/style: Freestyle
Team/gym: Jackson-Wink MMA Academy
MMA record: 19-5 | UFC record: 8-2
Average fight time: 5:50
Notable accomplishments/credentials: No. 9-ranked UFC featherweight; seven-fight win streak; seven UFC wins by knockout; four UFC performance bonuses.
Biggest strength/best technique: Garcia’s biggest strength is, by far, his insane punching power. In the UFC alone, he has scored seven knockout wins, which is an incredible number of knockouts for someone who weighs 145 pounds. In his MMA career, Garcia has won 19 times, and 15 of those wins have come by knockout, so he was knocking people out well before he joined the UFC in 2020.
MMA fans love knockouts, and Garcia is someone who delivers them. If he can keep this fight on the feet against Lopes, then he will have the chance to add another highlight-reel KO to his resume, and show the world that he’s for real.
Signature win/moment: Garcia has essentially been an MMA journeyman for most of his career. Before he came to the UFC, he fought for Bellator MMA, where he never really broke out to reach his full potential.
In the UFC, though, we’ve seen what Garcia can do when he’s at his best. After starting his UFC career 1-2, he has strung together seven wins in a row.
His biggest win to date came in his last fight, when he knocked out David Onama in his first UFC main event. That was the bout that convinced the UFC matchmakers he was ready for someone of Lopes’ stature, and here we are.
Key to victory: Garcia’s key to victory in this fight is obvious. He has to keep the fight standing and land the KO blow. If this fight goes to the ground, it becomes a very difficult bout for Garcia to win, as Lopes is levels ahead of Garcia on the mat.But if this fight stays standing, it’s essentially a 50/50 fight between two strikers with knockout power. Lopes does have a better chin than Garcia, as Lopes has never been dropped in the UFC, while Garcia has been knocked down five times inside the Octagon. These two both have huge knockout power, so if the fight stays standing, each fighter will have a chance to land a KO blow and put the other to sleep.
What a win would mean: A win over Lopes would be absolutely massive for Garcia’s career. Right now, he has one of the longest winning streaks in the UFC featherweight division with seven wins in a row. But Lopes would be, far and away, the biggest scalp on his resume.
Garcia enters this bout as the No. 9-ranked UFC featherweight, so if he can get past Lopes, it would presumably shoot him up to No. 2, which is where Lopes is ranked. That means he would be, at worst, one more win away from a title shot against UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
It goes without saying that this is the biggest fight of Garcia’s career, and if he can get his hand raised it will change the trajectory of not only his MMA career but his life.
5:27