The headliner for UFC 317 was the more compelling contest to watch compared to Jake Paul vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., which took place on the same night, in the eyes of one of BKFC's more tenured fighters. Appearing on Bare Knuckle Bowker, Erick Lozano touched on multiple topics heading into his clash with bare-knuckle boxing debutant Alessio Sakara at BKFC Philly on July 25th.
Among his lengthy run with the promotion, the established veteran of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship had a hugely exciting fight with Jake Bostwick that saw Lozano generate an incredible, gritty performance in the BKFC 45 co-main event clash in June 2023. Bostwick had previously got into a heated sparring session with Jake Paul before Paul's Ben Askren fight in April 2021 with the Bostwick-Paul sparring work getting some media attention at the time.
In that context, when asked for his thoughts on the recent Jake Paul vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. boxing bout that took place at the end of June, Erick Lozano said,
"I didn't get a chance to catch it [Paul vs. Chavez Jr.] but I heard about it. They said that pretty much Chavez [Jr.] didn't go out there and perform to his ability. I was more watching the; what was it? [Charles] Oliveira vs. [Ilia] Topuria in the main event for the UFC [UFC 317] rather than watching the Chavez [Jr.]-Paul fight. I'm not a fan of the Paul brothers, so."
BKFC combatant heaps massive praise on Ilia Topuria
When asked a follow up question on the BKB podcast regarding what he enjoyed from the UFC's International Fight Week offering, Erick Lozano stated,
"I just got to watch the main event. That's the one I wanted to watch. I knew; I called [Ilia] Topuria finishing him in the first round. I think he's a well rounded fighter. Right now, I think he's the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. Right now if I had to line them up, he'd be my number one fighter."
