CFFC 126: Brandon Lopez Looking to Get Back on a Win Streak

CFFC 126 takes place on Friday the 13th — October 13, 2023. And among those in action will be Brandon Lopez, looking to get himself back in the win column.

Coming up short against Julio Cesar Chaves last time out, Lopez saw a two-fight win streak snapped in what he called a “perfect storm” of issues leading into the fight.

“I’m not the one to do the excuse thing or anything like that,” Lopez told Cageside Press in a recent interview. “It was just kind of a perfect storm of things before. My original opponent backing out about two and a half weeks before the fight. We didn’t know a lot about Julio Cesar, hat’s off the him, he’s a tough son of a b*tch for sure. But it’s one of those things, we got the short-notice opponent not knowing much about it, that was the first thing.

Then the second thing that happened, the week before the fight, I haven’t told anybody about this really, I ended up getting a staph infection. A staph infection which led to a pretty bad fever. I was out of it, the week before the fight I was in bed, I had to pump on some antibiotics literally the week before the fight. I had about four days after getting off the antibiotics to try to get my body back to where it was before getting on the antibiotics, and those things just kill your conditioning.”

The thought of backing out crossed his mind, “but I’m not one to back out of fights.” So while he gives credit to Julio Cesar Chaves, Lopez added “my cardio wasn’t where it should have been, and like I said he was a real tough guy and I couldn’t push through and get the W that I needed.”

On Friday the 13th, just in time for Spooky Season, Brandon Lopez faces Jesus Hernandez, having learned from his last bout. “You take the loss, you learn, and you get stronger from it. I don’t really get discouraged in any way.” Looking to get back to his winning ways, Lopez wants to “go for a five [fight] win streak, ten win streak.”

Watch our full interview with CFFC 126 welterweight Brandon Lopez above.