In a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s, The MMA Hour, two-time heavyweight title challenger, Derrick Lewis, stated that he wants to fight former heavyweight champion, Stipe Miocic, next.
During the interview, Lewis reflected on his recent victory over Chris Daukus, which took place just a couple weeks ago at UFC Vegas 45 on Dec. 22.
“This last fight helped me,” Lewis said. “Like (it was a) big experience difference, you know, going into this fight. Just wanted to finally go into a fight week and not put pressure on myself and it felt great. And, you know, I plan on doing that the rest of my career now.
“I can just go out there and just have fun. I don’t have to prove anything.
“So that’s one of the reasons why I want to fight Stipe next,” he added. “I believe that would be a great match up for the fans and for both of us, because he’s more of a wrestler and I’m more of a wrestler as well too. So it’ll be a very entertaining fight.”
Lewis went on to further explain, a little more seriously this time, why he wants the fight against Miocic.
“I fought just about everyone in the division that’s in the Top 10, so it’s just like a new face, new blood. And, you know, just I believe that I’m the heavy underdog in this fight and (I can) get my fans their money back from the (Ciryl) Gane fight.”
Lewis (26-8) is 5-1 in his last six fights, with three of the five victories coming by way of knockout or technical knockout. His most recent loss came against interim heavyweight champion, Ciryl Gane, at UFC 265 last August.
Miocic (20-4) lost his heavyweight world title to current champion, Francis Ngannou, at UFC 260 last March and hasn’t fought since. The former champ is 4-2 in his last six fights, with two of the four victories coming by technical knockout.
