Derrick Lewis’ coach is speaking out on his fighter’s injury ahead of his outing with Junior dos Santos.
Lewis took on “Cigano” this past Saturday night (March 9). “The Black Beast” certainly swung for the fences, but was blasted with a body kick in the first round. In the second stanza, dos Santos finished Lewis via TKO. A report from Helen Yee later surfaced claiming that sources in Lewis’ camp said “The Black Beast” had a torn meniscus, ACL and MCL.
Lewis’ Coach Talks State Of His Fighter Ahead Of Last Bout
Speaking to MMAFighting.com, Lewis’ coach, Bob Perez, said “The Black Beast’s” injury hindered his training camp significantly:
“He wasn’t gonna pull [from the fight] anyway. That being said, training for this camp was really bad. He couldn’t do anything, honestly. We couldn’t really do anything. From Feb. 12 to the fight, he couldn’t run. I basically was able to hold mitts for him and he was able to swim and do a seated, stationary bike. He could not train.”
Perez went on to talk about what was going through his mind when Lewis returned to the corner after the opening frame:
“I knew he was hurt to the belly, but I didn’t know the extent of that, because Travis [Browne] actually broke his ribs. Derrick was like, ‘I had to take a crap.’ No, two ribs were broken. So in my head, the ribs are broken again. I knew the knee was shot, I could tell by his movement that he just wasn’t there. He actually held the knee a couple times. So I’m like, ‘Dude, we’ve gotta finish now.’ If it would have gone into the third, I don’t think he could have even supported his weight. Backstage [after the fight], man, he was in a wheelchair. The leg was completely locked out. We really need to figure out what’s going on. No fighter is completely 100 percent, but he was definitely beaten up going into this fight.”
Lewis has been quite active in the span of five months. He had a tough outing with Alexander Volkov back in Oct. 2018. Lewis ended up pulling off a comeback knockout win with just seconds left in the fight. He challenged UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier the following month and lost via unanimous decision.
Has Derrick Lewis spread himself too thin?
