Derrick Lewis believes the reason his fight against Francis Ngannou is yet to be made official is due solely to the inaction of the champion.
New UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou has made no secret of who he would love to face in his first title defense, Jon “Bones” Jones. The problem is that Jones and UFC President Dana White are engaged in an epic blinking contest as opposed to good-faith negotiations. This has opened the door for The Black Beast, and he has glided right through the #1-contender portal while being proclaimed by White to be the next opponent for The Predator.
White has said the fight was being targeted to take place in the summer, but there have been no announcements made or contracts signed. Speaking to MMA Junkie in a media scrum recently, Lewis addressed why that is.
“It’s not really official yet,” Lewis said. “But I don’t know. He seem like he still wanna keep going back and forth with Jones. He’s just really trying to ignore me. That’s what it seems like.”
One could imagine how frustrating it could be to sit on the sidelines waiting for someone else to determine when you fight again. For Lewis, there is no frustration because, as far as he’s concerned, he’s not waiting. On the contrary, he’s willing to fight again and doesn’t seem to care much who the opponent is.
“It’s really not frustrating at all. I don’t care,” Lewis said about the lull. “I want him to take all the time he can. He wanna show his belt around for his country, that’s fine. So I’m here whenever he ready. But if not, that’s fine, too. If he wanna fight Jones, he can fight Jones; I’ll fight Stipe. Or if they want me to fight Jones, I’ll fight Jones. It doesn’t matter.”
Which fight would you be most interested in seeing next for Derrick Lewis: Francis Ngannou, Stipe Miocic, or Jon Jones?
