Derrick Lewis often said that he was not interested in a title fight at five rounds at this stage of his career, but the 40 -year -old should reconsider after having stopped Tillerson Teixeira at 35 seconds after the main event of the UFC Fight Night in Nashville.
Lewis won three of his last four fights to recover as a higher threat to the heavyweight division after a sequence of three fighting defeats between 2022 and 2023 threatened his career. As a leader of all UFC KO / TKO times with 16 years old, Lewis has become one of the most popular fighters in the division. His post-combat hilarious interviews have certainly played a role in his ascent also, because many occasional fans connect to his typically televised fights just to see what he has to say later.
It is not a secret for anyone that the heavyweight division is in quasi-crisis mode after the retirement of Jon Jones forced the UFC to crown Tom Aspinall as acting champion at a post-Combat press conference in Azerbaijan. Lewis is certainly not Jon Jones, but he faced him against Aspinall in a potential title fight after his declaration performance on Saturday could be exactly what the division needs to roll the ball.
Perhaps Lewis should even be the American who makes the headlines of the potential UFC event at the White House next year against Aspinall, especially because you simply cannot trust Jones’ desire to fight and his ability to stay clean from one month to the other.
It should be relatively easy to sell the fight in Lewis, given the potential salary and the quasi-certainty that a fight between the two artists with direct elimination will end in the first three turns anyway.
“I believe that almost all the fights I lost, I lost, it was because I tired,” said Lewis. “My wife will tell you that I hate these losses because I know I was better than these guys in there. I know it would never happen again. ”
Donald Trump spoke to Lewis on the phone immediately after the fight, literally while the decision was read, so the presumption is that Ko King is one of the president’s favorite participants in the White House event.
“Derrick came and said where the president was,” said UFC president Dana White. “I said that he was not here tonight, but he looks and I put him on the phone and I put him on the phone with him. I have no idea what they talked about – maybe (Lewis) was trying to connect with a fight on the White House combat card.”
I would say it’s a fairly safe bet. We will see how it goes in a year.
