You didn’t like Francis Ngannou vs. Derrick Lewis, and The Black Beast he didn’t either.
It was a terrible performance, said Lewis at the UFC 226 post-fight press conference, as transcribed by Ryan Harkness for MMA Mania. I know I say that a lot, but it was a real bad performance. I know for sure I don’t deserve a title shot. I believe it hurt me more than it helped me. Even though I got the win, I believe it probably set me about two fights back.
We knew he really wanted to counter me coming in with my right hand, because I’m real vulnerable when I come in with my right hand. I lean over whenever I throw it and I know he wanted to catch me coming in and hit me with an uppercut, left hook … The gameplan was to take his ass down, and I already told my coach I dunno how to take down, I dunno how to do takedowns.
My ass needs to sit down somewhere and learn some more technique or something. I don’t deserve to call anyone out with a performance like that. I don’t care if he’s the number one contender, I believe I shouldn’t be fighting no one really, after a performance like that.
Lewis is clearly not a man to make excuses. And he suffers from back issues that took him out of a fight vs. Fabricio Werdum at UFC 216 in 2016, and played a role in a loss to Mark Hunt last year.
For sure my back was killing me, conceded Lewis. All I wanted to do was sit down and stay on that bench.
My wife, she really wants me to take care of my back before I even accept any type of fight, but it’s just the dog in me that always wants to fight, no matter what. But yeah, I know I need to take it more serious, and the doctors are telling me I need to lose at least 25 pounds and I need to stretch a lot more than I have been to try and help my back out.
In stark contrast to Lewis’s harsh criticism of himself, UFC president Dana White remained positive.
I don’t agree that his stock dropped, said White. He’s a fun guy. He’s funny. When he gets in there and throws, his fights are exciting. But he always has problems with his back. And that’s going to be a problem for him in there, you don’t wanna go in there with a bad back against Cormier, or any of these other heavyweights. But I like him and I don’t think that his stock drops at all. He won this fight, and tell me the last time he was in a boring fight?
