Gustavo Lopez on Heili Alateng fight and meeting Shaq

Gustavo Lopez takes on Heili Alateng in the preliminary portion of UFC Fight Night: Smith vs Spann. The bantamweight bout goes down on September 18th and emanates from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I spoke with Lopez ahead of this bout and he touched on multiple topics:

-Recent training efforts leading into this next Octagon foray

-The Cody Stamann training timeline

-The tons of fighters from the myriad of promotions he trains with at Xtreme Couture

-The mentorship from Miesha Tate over the years

-Generational martial arts teachings and creating a lineage of learning

-The seemingly perpetual positivity on his social media platforms

-The UFC PI for his growth

-Thoughts on Heili Alateng's big stylistic attributes heading into this one

-Meeting Shaq at the UFC PI and the backstory there