Derrick Lewis remains one of the hardest-hitting and most popular heavyweights on the entire UFC roster; ‘The Black Beast’ is back in action this weekend at UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs Albazi.
His return to action comes just two weeks after his former rival Francis Ngannou landed a devastating first-round knockout at PFL: Battle of the Giants in Saudi Arabia, with Lewis surprisingly crediting ‘The Predator’ for the money he’s making on his current UFC fight contract.
Derrick Lewis used Francis Ngannou’s UFC exit to leverage a better contract
Back in July 2018, Derrick Lewis scored a unanimous decision victory over Ngannou in what’s widely considered to be one of the most boring and underwhelming fights in UFC history.
Six years after that heavyweight snoozefest, Lewis is still clashing with Top contenders and is finding new ways to troll Ngannou; albeit this time over the number of PPVs sold for his ‘Battle of the Giants’ clash with Renan Ferreira.
“Oh, it was good,” Lewis stated in a recent interview with MMA Fighting: “It was good, I didn’t watch the fight, [but] I don’t think nobody did, I heard they only got 10,000 pay-per-view buys, but it’s good that he won.”
In fact, Lewis would then reveal that he credits Ngannou’s controversial UFC exit for the current contract he’s fighting on; with ‘The Black Beast’ insinuating that he also teased a move to the PFL in order to leverage better pay.
“Actually, Francis played the role of helping me get this contract that I got right now because [during] the negotiations, I said, ‘Man, look what they’re doing over there, I could be over there getting that, it’s so weird [but] I would like to stay here.’”
“I ain’t gonna say too much,” noted the popular veteran on the deal itself, sharing how the promotion has, in turn, tried to distribute his fights more evenly.
“Yes, because it was there, so now I’m here… So, you know, now they’re trying to space my fights out. I said, ‘No, don’t space them out. Come on, give me them three, or four fights that I wanted to give them before.’”
Derrick Lewis returns to UFC action this weekend against Jhonata Diniz
The promotion returns to Edmonton, Canada, this weekend with Derrick Lewis set to face undefeated Brazilian knockout artist Jhonata Diniz in the featured bout of the evening.
Lewis may have had a stop-start few years in the UFC, going 8-7 since that matchup with Ngannou, but he’s coming off an impressive third-round finish of Rodrigo Nascimento back in May.
“It was very important for me to get the victory over a guy like that because I felt like he shouldn’t have been in the cage with me,” he told the UFC News crew earlier this week regarding that last bout.
“I had to go out there and really perform to the best of my ability… I felt 100% confident about everything I’ve been doing in the gym and mentally, I felt like I had nothing to lose, so with no pressure on myself, I just went out there really relaxed.”
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His UFC Edmonton opponent, Jhonata Diniz, is 8-0 as a professional and is 2-0 in the MMA world leader; having scored a brutal KO over Austen Lane in his UFC debut in April, before defeating Karl Williams in August via a unanimous decision.
“They say he’s a good kickboxer, so I’ve got to watch the leg kicks,” noted Lewis on the threat posed by the undefeated Brazilian, who rides into Edmonton with seven KO/TKO wins to his name.
“I know he’s going to throw a lot of leg kicks to try and take my power away; I got to watch out for his hooks, stuff like that, and he’s got a little bit of speed so I gotta watch out for that.”
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