Francis Ngannou was backstage at UFC 216 Saturday when word got out that Derrick Lewis was forced to remove himself from a fight with Fabricio Werdum.
Ngannou heard this and tried to step in and face the former champion inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“It’s a good matchup. Definitely this is a good matchup that I would never dodge it,” Ngannou said backstage in an interview with MMAjunkie. “I knew I was going to fight Alistair Overeem one day. I’ve been waiting for this fight and got ready for it since a long time ago.”
Officials instead went with Walt Harris, who was scheduled to fight Mark Godbeer on the prelims.
Ngannou, meanwhile, will put his 10-1 record on the line at UFC 218 in the co-main event vs. Overeem. He had a fight with Junior dos Santos scrapped earlier this year following his victory vs. Andrei Arlovski.
