Derrick Lewis is promising something different for the UFC Vegas 6 main event this weekend. As he enters his 20th fight inside the octagon, he’s also a bit confused to see another heavyweight claiming he’s protected by the promotion.
That would be Curtis Blaydes, who made the comments earlier this summer.
“I don’t understand what he’s talking about. This will be my 20th fight in the octagon,” Lewis (23-7, 1NC) responded, speaking to Cageside Press at Thursday’s UFC Vegas 6 media day. “I fought all the tough guys in the octagon, he’s just coming up on the radar.”
Lewis isn’t wrong on the numbers front, or the who’s who he’s fought in the promotion’s heaviest weight class. Cormier. Ngannou. Dos Santos. Volkov. Former champs, current contenders. “I don’t even know how many fights that guy’s had anyway in the UFC, for him to talk like they’re protecting me. I’ve fought just about everybody in the top ten.”
The only two he hasn’t fought is Blaydes himself and Alistair Overeem, he noted. “Overeem turned me down like three times this past month, before Oleinik had popped up. And I asked for Blaydes.”
Guess the ball is back in Blayde’s court. In the meantime, Lewis is facing dangerous submission expert Aleksei Oleinik this weekend. And “The Black Beast” is predicting a much different fight that his last couple, even if he did win those.
“I think you’re going to see something you haven’t seen from me in a long time inside the octagon. I’m going to come out balls blazing,” promised Lewis, apparently unconcerned about those getting hot again.
Elaborating, he later added that he’s planning “something crazy, something different. You’re going to see something different from me that you’ve never seen before.” What that boils down to, he explained, is that “I’m just going to be more active.”
Perhaps you considered Derrick Lewis a little gun shy in his past two fights, decision wins against Blagoy Ivanov and Ilir Latifi. On Thursday, Lewis had an explanation for that.
“I was a new creature in those fights. Different type of body coming into the octagon. Feeling lighter, feeling faster, and just wanting to test it out,” he said. “And now that I’ve tested it out full force, going three rounds in my last two fights, I feel like I’m more comfortable, that I can really let loose in the first round and not gas out.”
While Oleinik poses a real threat on the ground, it’s worth noting that the only fighter to submit Lewis thus far has been Daniel Cormier.
“I know pretty much good jiu-jitsu and how to get out of crazy stuff,” noted Lewis. “The situation with D.C., is just one of those moments that I shouldn’t have took my time trying to get up. I’ve got to explode if I’m going to give my opponent my back like that, I can’t just take my time.”
Outside fighting, Lewis spent a little time on Cameo lately, where fans can pay for personalized messages from their favorite celebs. It was an interesting experience for the heavyweight, apparently. “I hated doing Cameo. Even when I started hiking the price up, they still tried to get me to do cameos. I really had to change my number just because of Cameo,” he exclaimed.
“The craziest thing they asked me to do was take my shorts off, actually. It was an older man, he wanted me to take my shorts off. I think it was a fetish of his, I went ahead and did it anyway,” recalled Lewis.
And how much did he earn for that endeavor? “100$”
The always entertaining Derrick Lewis returns this Saturday in the main event of UFC Vegas 6, which airs live on ESPN+ (TSN in Canada).
