A room built around Alexander Volkanovski is not a room where fighters are supposed to get up off their backs. Yet according to Volkanovski’s career-long coach Joe Lopez, that is exactly what Mauricio Ruffy is doing at Freestyle MMA in Australia.
The revelation is unusual on two counts. Camps rarely go public with what happens on the mats, and they almost never do it to build up someone else’s fighter. Ruffy is preparing for Arman Tsarukyan in the co-main event of UFC 331, and Lopez wants the No. 2-ranked lightweight to know what is waiting for him.
The training reset
Speaking on Submission Radio, Lopez said Ruffy’s wrestling has moved into another gear since he arrived.
“Well, it’s just chalk and cheese. You can just see how he’s improving, you know? For this fight here, that’s one of our specialties is our defensive wrestling and our scrambles and not accepting the position. Honestly, he’s picking it up.”
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Lopez then named the training partners who have been trying to plant Ruffy on the canvas.
“He’s training his escapes, getting out, putting his body in the right position, putting his hands in the right position. Having Frank (Hickman), Alex (Volkanovski), and Brad Riddell there constantly trying to take him down and him getting back up, I can just see how hard it is for those boys now to hold him down.”
Volkanovski is the current UFC featherweight champion. He reclaimed the vacant belt with a unanimous decision over Diego Lopes at UFC 314 in Miami on 12 April 2025 to open his second reign, and defended it against Lopes in the rematch at UFC 325 in Sydney on 31 January.
Why this warning matters
Ruffy’s grappling was the single line on his file everyone circled after his first UFC defeat. At UFC Paris on 6 September 2025, Benoit Saint-Denis dragged him down early and finished him with a face crank at 2:56 of the second round, ending an unbeaten UFC run at 3-0. Ruffy leaned too heavily on hunting sweeps and submissions off his back rather than fighting his way to his feet.
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Since then he has knocked out Michael Chandler and Rafael Fiziev, and the reset at Freestyle MMA is aimed squarely at the last problem left on his tape. Lopez does not think Tsarukyan can pick at it any longer.
“Arman’s in for a fight. It’s not going to be he’s going to hold Ruffy down for five rounds and make it ugly.”
UFC 331 and what is at stake
Tsarukyan carries a 23-3 record and one of the division’s most feared top games. Ruffy is 14-2, ranked No. 9 by USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie at the time of the booking, and riding the momentum of those back-to-back finishes. UFC officials booked the pair as a five-round co-main event, sitting under the flyweight title rematch between champion Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja.
The winner will have a live argument for the next shot at the lightweight belt. UFC 331 takes place on Saturday, 19 September at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
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