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Derrick Lewis | There’s Levels To This Game
Derrick Lewis Plans On Showing Exactly Why He’s The Knockout King Of The Octagon By Taking Out A Fellow Heavy Hitter With KO Power Of His Own
Derrick Lewis has always been slightly uneasy with being in the spotlight, but that’s exactly where “The Black Beast” finds himself this weekend.
Lewis returns to the Octagon in the main event of UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs Teixeira in Nashville, Tennessee. But there’s no excitement or joy about being the man on the poster as he heads into his first fight of 2025.
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“I don't care about being the main event and stuff like that,” he admitted.
Derrick Lewis | Greatest Hits
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Derrick Lewis | Greatest Hits
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“It'd be good to be the first fight of the night! At this point in my career, I don't care about being the main event, but I'm here, so I guess I'm happy for it!”
Lewis hasn’t been in the Octagon since his third-round finish of Rodrigo Nascimento back in May 2024. Since then, planned matchups with Alexandr Romanov and Jhonata Diniz were canceled. Now, after more than a year away, the Houston native is ready to get back into the Octagon and start throwing leather once again, though he admits he wasn’t 100 percent sure how he came to be in this particular fight, on this particular card.
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“I don't know. I guess they got tired of my manager calling for a fight!” he grinned.
“The perfect opportunity popped up in Tennessee, and I'm happy that I came, because Nashville is a beautiful city.”
Saturday night’s main event will see Lewis make the walk for his 30th UFC fight – a remarkable milestone that he said doesn’t feel real.
“No, not at all! This is just crazy,” he said.
“I don't know what's going on. I’m thinking this is like a simulator or something like that! So I don't know if this is even real! It’s just crazy that I'm still here!
“I guess you could compare my career to Shaq, without the championships!
“Shaq, later in his career, he was still relevant, even though he was bouncing around, team to team, but he was still relevant. So I think you can say that's somewhat of my type of career.”
Lewis may not have the championships, but he does own an extensive highlight reel that illustrates why he’s been one of the most feared heavyweights in the UFC over the past decade.
In his prior 29 UFC fights, Lewis has claimed 19 victories, with a staggering 15 of them coming via knockout. It’s a stat that puts him at the top of the UFC’s all-time knockouts list.
When asked if there was a KO that stood out from the rest, two names immediately sprang to Lewis’s mind.
“(Alexander) Volkov and Curtis Blaydes,” he said.
Best Mic Moments | Derrick Lewis
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Best Mic Moments | Derrick Lewis
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“There’s a couple of other ones, too, but I think those two right there stand out the most. Just because those guys were talking crap before the fight, and it was just sweet to knock them out and have their eyes roll back in their head.”
Lewis has faced a who’s who of the UFC heavyweight division during his career, but now, still ranked inside the top 10, he’s been handed a rather different assignment.
Rather than facing a fellow top 10 contender, Lewis has drawn the name of Tallison Teixeira, a Brazilian prospect and Dana White’s Contender Series graduate who has fought just once in the UFC so far – in a fight that lasted a mere 35 seconds.
Teixeira’s first-round knockout of Arthur Lopes on DWCS, and subsequent 35-second finish of Justin Tafa at UFC 312 have convinced the UFC matchmakers that the Brazilian has what it takes to mix it up with Lewis in Nashville.
Lewis disagrees, and said that by throwing a prospect with just 35 seconds of Octagon time into a main event with a man who has been fighting at the sharp end of the UFC heavyweight division for the past seven years, the matchmakers have made a big mistake.
When asked about the experience gap between the pair, Lewis said, “I think it comes into play a lot.
“I’ve fought way more tough fighters than this guy. All his wins just came against guys that were 0-1, 1-2, 1-1 – really having no experience.
“So they’re really trying to build this guy up for failure. That’s what I believe. I believe it’s too soon for him. That’s what I think.
“I believe there really are levels to it. And I think coming up against a guy like me – very unpredictable, very dangerous – you never know what you're going to expect, I think it's just too early for him to fight someone like me.”
With an unblemished 8-0 record that includes seven knockouts and one submission, Teixeira will be confident and determined to build his name by toppling Lewis on Saturday night. But Lewis served warning that things are about to get real very quickly for the Brazilian when he steps inside the Octagon with “The Black Beast”.
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“He should expect that a guy’s going to come at him like no other opponent has come at him before,” he stated.
“He's going to realize that he made a big mistake signing that paper.”
UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs Teixeira took place live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee on July 12, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!