In the main event of UFC Vegas 19, Derrick Lewis pulled off a highlight-reel knockout of top Heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes. Following this win, there was one name Lewis had in mind for his next fight.
During the Post-Fight Press Conference, Lewis called for a bout against Heavyweight veteran Alistair Overeem. “I want Overeem next,” Lewis said. “Like I said earlier I’m already greased and oiled up for him so we ready.”
Overeem recently suffered a loss to Alexander Volkov earlier this year, however, despite this Lewis is still gunning for a bout with the “Legend”, although ideally, Lewis sees the fight being a three-rounder.
“I would like a three-round fight, just cause, I don’t want five rounds,” Lewis said. “I don’t care he had a couple of losses in a row it’d be cool just to fight him because he’s a so-called legend so it would be cool to fight somebody like that and also he been talking trash you know he’s been saying that his teammate Curtis could handle this lightweight and stuff like that and we’ve been trying to fight him for years and he turned down the fight four times already.”
Despite sharing that Overeem had turned down the fight before Lewis believes he may be open to taking it now. “He might take it, he’s been hit on the head a couple of times so he might forget all about what happened tonight so he’ll probably take it.”
Currently, Lewis is sitting on a four-fight win streak beginning with Blagoy Ivanov in November of 2019, and most recently with Blaydes. Overeem is coming off a streak-breaking loss to Volkov, however, before this Overeem had put together back-to-back wins.
Given Overeem recently suffered a knockout loss there is no clear timeline to when a bout between these two Heavyweights could happen.