Alexander Volkanovski’s Coach Joe Lopez Comments On Accusations Of IV Use By Islam Makhachev

Longtime head MMA coach Joe Lopez gives his thoughts on the accusation that Islam Makhachev used an IV to help him recover at UFC 284.

Lopez Volkanovski
Credit Freestyle MMA on Instagram

Joe Lopez has heard all the accusations swirling of IV usage in the Islam Makhachev camp prior to UFC 284.

The main event on UFC 284 featured two of the best fighters in the UFC at this time. Pound-for-pound number one Alexander Volkanovski moved up to lightweight to challenge the newly crowned champion Islam Makhachev. After five hard-fought rounds, it was Makhachev that came out on top. Following the event, one of Volkanovski’s teammates, Dan Hooker took to social media to accuse Makhachev of using an IV to recover. At the time of speculation, it was assumed that such usage was illegal. 

Since the accusations, no further evidence has come out to show that Makhachev had used anything illegal in his post-weight-cut rehydration. Now after the fact Volkanovski’s head coach, Joe Lopez thinks more can be done to monitor such situations.

Joe Lopez wants the commission to keep a closer eye on shady happenings during fight week

Lopez has been around the sport of MMA for a long time. He has worked with some of the best fighters from Australia and New Zealand including Volkanovski. He was not one to throw the accusation Makhachev’s way but was asked about the situation in an interview with The All-Star on YouTube.

“There’s a lot of shady stuff going on there. All I’m gonna say is where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. and there’s a lot of stuff out there,” he said. “I think a lot of the guys have saved a lot of these tweets and messages and everything else. And hopefully, like with anything at all comes out in the wash one day.”

Lopez does a great job of explaining why the usage of an IV would be so unfair in the situation pertaining to Makhachev. Jeff Novitzky of the UFC came out and explained when and how IV usage would be deemed ok, not partially in this case but Lopez thinks these things should be more closely watched.

“At least for the next shows and other shows into the future, they keep a better eye on this thing,” he said. “Because it’d be great for everyone to be able to IV up and be good in 20 minutes. There are a lot of the reasons they don’t do it because it’s a masking agent, not saying he’s taking performance, you know, could be a diuretic, could be a number of things that they’re doing to help them through that. And the IV masks a lot of that stuff. But again, I’m not going to accuse anybody of anything. But I think that they’ve got to monitor that a lot better in the future.

“You can’t expect to come to our country and expect to get away with getting IVs,” Lopez said. “They got IVs, they can’t deny that..we know that for a fact, we’ve got that evidence…people have backflipped on a lot of things, but there’s a smoking gun here.”

Lopez is open to a rematch between these two in the wake of the controversy surrounding the decision and the IV. He believes his fighter did enough to earn the victory and would like to see him back in there again with the lightweight champion after he settles things in the featherweight division. 

Published on February 18, 2023 at 9:43 am
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