When the UFC announced that its UFC Manilla card was scrapped altogether after UFC legend BJ Penn pulled out of his return bout against Ricardo Lamas in the scheduled main event, the fighters involved on the card were devastated that they would be losing a payday.
One such fighter who was left standing in the dust of the cancelled card was No. 10-ranked Derrick Lewis who was set to take on Marcin Tybura in the co-main event of the evening.
Lewis recently spoke with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour regarding the cancelled card, courtesy of MMA Fighting, and revealed that he was alerted of the news after being woken up with multiple missed calls from his manager:
“They woke me out of my sleep,” he said. “I had like missed calls from my manager, and he told me he had bad news. I thought my opponent got hurt or something like that. He broke it down to me and said the whole card got cancelled. And I was just pissed. I said, ‘are they still going to pay me?’ He said he don’t know, that we were going to talk about it this week.
“I said, there ain’t no talking about it, let me call Dana White or somebody to pay me, because I don’t already don’t like flying don’t make me come all the way over here for nothing. So we’re still waiting. I haven’t anything from nobody.”
Although the UFC promised it would compensate the fighters for their inconvenience after the card was cancelled, Lewis believes his promotion will only compensate him for his stay in Manilla, leaving him with no profit off the trip:
“I don’t like that compensated stuff,” he said. “I’m thinking they are just going to pay me for all the little taxi cab rides I had to spend and the hotel and probably the plane tickets, and that’s not enough. I cut a lot of weight. I cut like 30 pounds for this fight. I was hurting man, you know, I wanted to eat. I wanted some chicken and I couldn’t eat. I was suffering.”
Lewis, who was visibly disgruntled over the entire situation, stated that he’ll be content just receiving the show money he was set to make’ and he’ll get it at any cost necessary:
“Hell, just give me my show money, just at least give me half of it. That’s what I want, I’ll be satisfied,” he said.
“Either I’m going to get it and either they’re going to hand it to me in my hands, or somebody’s going to have to pay for it.”
“Yeah I’ll call him,” he said. “I don’t got [a relationship with White], but my manager, I’d make somebody give me his number and either I’ll call him or I’ll show up at his doorstep, either one. Somebody’s going to pay me.”
Derrick Lewis has since been rescheduled to headline the UFC Fight Night 102 card later this year against Shamil Abdurakhimov, live on UFC Fight Pass from the Times Union Center in Albany, New York on December 9, 2016.
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