Derrick Lewis is willing to trade leather with Francis Ngannou.
Lewis is fresh off his second-round knockout victory over Travis Browne last Sunday night (Feb. 19) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. “The Black Beast” moved up to the seventh spot on the official Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight rankings with the victory.
He finds himself a spot behind sixth ranked heavyweight Francis Ngannou. “The Predator” starched former UFC 265-pound title holder Andrei Arlovski in the first round of their bout last month. Ngannou has yet to lose inside the Octagon, securing a record of 5-0 under the UFC banner.
Lewis talked to Ariel Helwani about a potential match-up with Ngannou on “The MMA Hour” (via MMAMania.com). Of course, “The Black Beast” didn’t back down and he welcomed the challenge in the way you’d expect him to:
“Yeah I will fight him, He’s real good. This is America, you know they like to see black on black crime, they thrive on that, they love that. I’ll give it to them, yeah. Me and him are close to each other (in the rankings) so I would like to fight someone that’s more of a challenge. I believe Mark Hunt is more of a challenge. Me beating Francis is not really going to boost my stats or get me closer to the belt. He hasn’t fought the top guys yet, just one guy, but he is running through guys.”
