Issue 143
July 2016
You can guarantee one thing when Derrick Lewis goes to work in the Octagon – someone’s going to sleep
Derrick Lewis
UFC Heavyweight
Alias: The Black Beast
Age: 31
Team: 4oz Fight Club
Record: 15-4 (1 NC)
Timing is everything in combat sports. It’s an essential part of slipping a punch or landing a knockout blow. Hitting peak form at the right moment can also be the catalyst for a championship reign. Some may call it luck, but fortune favors a fighter who’s working hard in the gym. When opportunity knocked for Derrick Lewis, he made sure he was ready. He’s now got the well-rounded ability to hang with the Octagon’s biggest grapplers, but his primary goal is still to knock them out cold.
‘The Black Beast’ is starting to peak right now. A three-KO streak has elevated the Texas heavyweight to the periphery of the UFC’s elite and there’s a strong argument he’s the most intimidating athlete in mixed martial arts thanks to his frightening finishing ability.
Lewis has knocked out all but one of his victims in mixed martial arts. And the one that didn’t get knocked out, tapped out. His acumen for punching other men unconscious isn’t surprising considering he’s a man who calls heavyweight boxing icon George Foreman a “grandfather figure”.
The 31-year-old’s next test is granite-chinned Roy Nelson under the lights of International Fight Week’s Thursday Fight Pass card. Lewis asked to be paired with ‘Big Country’ because a win will propel him into the division’s top 10. More importantly, it’s a matchup that’s practically guaranteed to deliver a fan-friendly finish.
He says: “I wanted to fight Roy next and that’s the fight I’ve got. It’s going to be a huge weekend in Las Vegas, but I think our fight is definitely one the fans will really be looking forward to. It’s a fun fight – no judges required. Everyone is going to love it.”
Lewis barely lifts his voice above a whisper. But then when you’re as destructive as he is, you don’t have to raise your voice to get noticed. “I know what I am, I’m a brawler,” he offers with a grin. “I do this because I love it. I want to put on a show for the fans and so I swing for the fences. I go into every fight with the same mind frame: knock my opponent out – or get knocked out.”
Born into an abusive family environment in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lewis and his mother fled to Houston when he was a teenager. But the lack of a father figure saw the 17-year-old veer off the straight and narrow. Fighting became second nature and after an amateur boxing career failed to get off the ground, his college years were curtailed by a three-and-a-half-year stint behind bars when he violated probation he received for aggravated assault.
It was during his incarceration that Lewis first nurtured ambitions of fighting in UFC. Upon his release he gravitated back to the boxing ring, where Foreman took him under his wing. But MMA was always his fighting passion. “Boxing offered me so much, but it was the UFC that I dreamt of,” he admits.
He went 9-2 before being signed by the UFC in the summer of 2013, and eight straight knockouts have followed – six in his favor. His latest victim was former UFC title challenger Gabriel Gonzaga in Zagreb, Croatia in April. The first-round KO gave him the most high-profile win of his career.
“It was the perfect opportunity for me, stepping up to face Gabriel, as I just want to get into the top 15,” says Lewis. “I believe everything is finally clicking in my career. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, only I’m in the best place possible and I just want to stay active. I feel like I could fight every month right now so I jumped at fighting Gonzaga.
“I knew which Gabriel Gonzaga would show up. Did you see the way he was just laying and praying on me against the cage? I wasn’t going to get caught up in that. I just waited for the ref to break it up and continued to defend myself at all times.
“He’s got a pretty strong top game and, you know, he put a lot into getting that takedown at the start. In the end I let him get it, but he worked really hard to take me down. That’s what I wanted.” The finish – all hooks and uppercuts against the fence in the dying seconds of the round – sent shockwaves across the arena and the weight class.
Lewis insists, is that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of his potential inside the cage. Against Gonzaga he showed patience and the ground game to survive a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt’s mount, though he admits he’s unlikely to start a submission streak any time soon. His mat skills purely serve as a tool to allow him to flick the switch and unload with his devastating strikes.
“I feel undefeated in MMA right now,” he adds. “The guys who I have losses to, I shouldn’t have lost to – in my mind. I lost those fights on paper, sure, but each loss was for a reason. And each time I’ve come back a much better fighter.
“I’ve been working hard on my grappling skills, but every time I fight I just want it to be exciting. I just listened to my coaches. Once we get that 10-second warning at the end of the round, those final 10 seconds, well that’s when the beast is allowed to come out. Now the beast is ready to be unleashed on Roy Nelson too.”
Punchers’ paradox
Granite fists vs. iron chin
With 15 stoppages, 14 by knockout, in as many career wins, Derrick Lewis is the most ruthless finisher in the heavyweight division. Yet the unstoppable force meets one of MMA’s most durable fighters at UFC Fight Night 90. Only knockout king Mark Hunt has stopped Roy Nelson in the Octagon.
Life in the fast lane
Blink and you’ll miss him
With an average fight time of just five minutes and eight seconds, Derrick Lewis fights come with a warning: don’t blink! The only Octagon heavyweight whose fights you can expect to end more quickly is Todd Duffee.
...
