Derrick Lewis Says His ACL Has Been Hanging On By A Thread

It looks like the UFC will be without the services of fan-favorite heavyweight Derrick Lewis for most of 2019. Lewis will be undergoing knee surgery to repair a torn ACL, MCL, and meniscus. “The Black Beast” suggests he has been fighting with the knee issues for several years now.

After his recent TKO defeat to Junior dos Santos in Wichita, Lewis has decided to repair the injuries. He’ll undergo surgery today (Tues. March 26, 2019) before beginning rehabilitation. Lewis will likely be out-of-action until the end of this year. Speaking on the matter during an appearance on yesterday’s “The Ariel Helwani MMA Show,” Lewis detailed just how significant the injury is.

He revealed that his ACL is nearly all the way torn, claiming it’s hanging on by a “thread.” Also, his meniscus and MCL have torn all the way through (via MMA Mania):

”My ACL is partial tear and my meniscus and MCL is all the way torn,” Lewis said. “So the ACL is hanging on by thread, really. It’s a rare tear, they say. The doctors say the way the angle of the tear is, my knee was bent the opposite way, so I told them about my fight with Ruan Potts, he got me in a kneebar and it was pretty tight and I heard it pop when he did it.

“But I still got out of the submission. And they said they could tell it was a few years since the injury happened because the way it was growing back, it wasn’t growing right.”

Who do you want Lewis to fight upon his return from knee surgery?