“Yeah, it’s a big fight in the division,” UFC President Dana White said at Wednesday UFC 271 Press Conference when asked if the co-main event combatants were battling for a place in the championship tier in the division. “Derrick is ranked No. 3 and obviously he wants to hold that position, and Tai is ranked No. 11.
“It’s a big fight in the heavyweight division.”
It’s a big fight for both men, as well.
Lewis, who holds the record for the most knockouts in UFC history, has been a fixture in the Top 5 for the last several years, serving as that top-line hurdle championship hopefuls need to clear should they want to enter the title conversation.
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And more often than not, Lewis has dispatched those types, building an 8-3 record over his last 11 fights where two of the three losses came in championship fights.
If there is a knock on the beloved joker with the gravely baritone, it’s that he’s come up short in the biggest moments of his career, falling to Daniel Cormier when the two battled for the heavyweight title at UFC 230 in New York City, and suffering a third-round stoppage loss to Ciryl Gane in an interim title bout last summer in Houston, where the local standout admitted the pressures and rigors of headlining a championship fight at home got to him.
But losing to Cormier and Gane is something 31 of a possible 34 opponents between them have done, so to hold that against Lewis, who has already rebounded with a record-setting first-round stoppage win over Daukaus, feels like it would be trying too hard to find fault with the punishing finisher.