Heavyweight knockout artist Derrick Lewis scored another finish on Saturday in the UFC St. Louis main event. Lewis knocked out Rodrigo Nascimento early in the third round after knocking him down with a right hand.
Lewis entered the bout coming off a decision loss to Jailton Almeida in his previous fight back in November. He had lost four of his last five bouts and was in desperate need of a win to stay relevant in the division. “The Black Beast” halted Nascimento’s three-fight winning streak and added to his record knockout wins in UFC history. The record is now 15.
After the win, Lewis took off his fight shorts, took out his cup, removed his gloves and spoke to former middleweight champion-turned commentator Michael Bisping.
Deontay Wilder | Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images
Deontay Wilder knows a thing or two about knockouts, and the last thing he wants to see is Mike Tyson on the receiving end of one.
Tyson, a retired heavyweight boxing legend, makes his return to pro competition on June 20 when he fights social media influencer turned boxing star Jake Paul in Arlington, Texas. When fight night comes around, it will mark more than 20 years since Tyson’s most recent pro bout, and be just 10 days shy of Tyson’s 58th birthday.
Paul, 27, is 9-1 as a professional and is coming off of back-to-back knockouts of journeymen boxers Ryan Bourland and Andre August.
In an interview with Sportsbook Review, Wilder was asked for his thoughts on the upcoming matchup and didn’t hold back with his criticism.
“I think it’s bad the commission has licensed Mike Tyson, because he hasn’t been active in 20 years, so they should not just license him because of who he is. That’s how people get hurt. God forbid he gets hurt,” Wilder said (transcription via James Bisson). “People can get hit in the wrong place and at the wrong time, there’s lots of examples where guys have been hit into a coma. It’s easy to do.
“His power may not have left completely, but you still need to set it up, your stamina needs to be a certain way, or it’s going to look like a clown show. I don’t want to see it, to be honest. I don’t want to see one of my legends fight a YouTuber. If [Paul] goes in there and he knocks Mike out, that’s going to tarnish the reputation of Mike. I don’t want the last thing I remember of him is him getting knocked out by a YouTuber.”
Tyson and his team have made sure to release plenty of training footage to hype up the fight, creating some optimism that the famed knockout artist can recapture his old magic when he returns to the ring.
While Paul is no stranger to fighting former champions and marquee names, they have all come from the world of MMA, including Anderson Silva, Nate Diaz, and Tyron Woodley.
This isn’t the first time that Wilder has spoken openly about the dangers of boxing. Following his own spectacular KO of Robert Helenius — the 42nd knockout victory of Wilder’s career — he was in tears expressing his concern for Helenius’ health.
There’s no telling how he might react if he has to watch one of his heroes fall to an opponent 30 years his junior.
“[Tyson is] too old for this,” Wilder said. “At the end of the day, no one gives a f*ck about Mike. We can talk about the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, they don’t give a f*ck.
“I don’t think anyone cares about Mike, because if they did, they wouldn’t sanction the fight. They may say they’ve done tests and all that, OK, but as long as you’re willing to suffer the consequences if something bad goes wrong.”
White sounds serious about taking the UFC out of the miserable Apex and back on the road to all the smaller markets they’ve been ignoring since the pandemic.
The UFC was in St. Louis, Missouri last night for a fun event at the Enterprise Center which featured Derrick Lewis knocking a dude out and hometown hero Joaquin Buckley beating tough challenger Nursulton Ruziboev.
According to UFC CEO Dana White, the event marked the highest gate ever for a UFC Fight Night, generating $ 2.47 million with 15,960 fans in attendance. And those fans were hyped. It was a nice change of vibes after we’ve had to suffer through eight listless Fight Nights at the UFC Apex so far this year.
On a recent TKO Inc. earnings call, the corporate owners of the UFC suggested the Apex might get phased out over time, despite the obvious cost benefits of holding shows there. White seemed to echo similar sentiments after St. Louis.
“Even if you’re watching on ESPN, I mean, everybody — I’m sure you guys were getting text too. They’re like, ‘Jesus Christ. It’s like a pay per view there right now.’”
“And this is, when you think about how we built this business, it was taking it out of the big markets. When we first got into the fight business, everybody just went to Vegas, Atlantic City, sometimes New York, sometimes LA. That’s the only place that really had fights unless you had a local kid.
“We built this business taking this thing to every city all over the world,” he repeated. “And as we start to get our s— together, I will call it, and start to move out and start to go to these different cities like we used to, the whole sport just goes to another level.”
Asked if this meant the end of the Apex as the most used venue for UFC events, White replied yes.
“It’s what I’ve been saying for a long time,” he said. “We gotta get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities, and we’re starting to do it. We’re getting it done this year.”
We’ve been saying since the end of the pandemic that the Apex is a hype-killer that hurts the product and the UFC’s ability to develop the next generation of stars. With gates like St. Louis, even the nerds in accounting can’t deny it makes sense to get back on the road.
Mateusz Rebecki learned some valuable lessons in his first UFC loss this past Saturday to Diego Ferreira, and he’ll continue to be reminded of those as he looks in the mirror for the next several day.
Ferreira stopped Rebecki in the third round at UFC St. Louis in a fight that saw the latter completely battered down the stretch. Following the bout, Rebecki revealed what his face looked like while he was laying in a hospital bed.
Check out the wild photo below.
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A post shared by Mateusz Rębecki (@rebeasti)
The loss ended an impressive 16-fight win streak for Rebecki, which included a 3-0 start to his UFC run. The Contender Series alum entered the fight as a massive favorite coming off of his first-round submission victory against Roosevelt Roberts at UFC 295 this past November.
Ferreira made his return to action for the first time in just under a year, and delivered a reminder to the rest of the UFC lightweight division, while also earning a Performance of the Night bonus.
Ben Askren expects Jon Jones to make quick work of Alex Pereira if the two ever tussle inside the Octagon.
Following Pereira’s sensational first-round knockout of Jamahal Hill at UFC 300, ‘Bones’ took to social media to gauge interest in a potential superfight between himself and the reigning 205-pound champ. Needless to say, fans exploded with excitement online and pundits immediately began debating who would come out on top in the potential champion vs. champion clash.
Speaking with UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier, former Bellator MMA and ONE world champion Ben Askren suggested that Pereira wouldn’t last much longer against Jones than Ciryl Gane did.
“People want to see him have the ability to stop takedowns, because of you can’t stop takedowns [from] Jon Jones, he’s going to take you down and submit you,” Askren said on an episode of Funky & Champ.
“We saw Pereira get taken down by [Israel] Adesanya and he was kept down for, actually, a significant portion of time. And it is kind of wild that we have this guy Pereira, and there’s no doubt he’s making his mark as, possibly, one of the best ever if he keeps winning, yet [there] are questions about his wrestling. Like, how would he do against good wrestling? And we don’t know because somehow Jamahal Hill didn’t try a takedown, [Jiri] Prochazka didn’t try a takedown, [Jan] Blachowicz actually did take him down and keep him down for a round, Strickland didn’t try a takedown. … Like, these guys, they don’t try takedowns.
“He’s won all of these fights … and as he’s fought Sean Strickland and on, besides one round with Jan — and Jan’s not really a wrestler, he possesses some skills but he’s not really a wrestler. [Pereira] has still not fought a wrestler. So we still have all of these questions. So if he fights Jon Jones, I think there’s a chance it’s over in like two and a half minutes. I mean, look what Jon did to Ciryl Gane. He’s a large man, he’s a high-level wrestler, he’s got great grappling skills. Yeah, I think there’s a possibility of that for sure” (h/t MMA Fighting).
Jones secured a quick two-minute submission victory over Gane at UFC 285 to claim the vacant heavyweight title.
‘Bones’ was expected to defend the title against the division’s consensus GOAT Stipe Miocic in November, but a pectoral injury forced him to bow out of the bout.
Askren believes Jon Jones needs to fight Tom Aspinall before Alex Pereira
In the meantime, the UFC has crowned an interim champion in Tom Aspinall after the UK-based star scored a 69-second KO against Sergei Pavlovich inside the world’s most famous arena.
Traditionally, the undisputed champion would unify his belt with that of the interim titleholder upon their return. Unfortunately, that won’t be the case this time around as both Jones and the UFC have remained adamant that ‘Bones’ vs. Miocic will move forward.
With rumors of retirement and now talk of a potential fight with Alex Pereira, it has become increasingly more clear that Jones has no intention of ever fighting Tom Aspinall, much to the chagrin of fight fans and Ben Askren.
“We want to see Jon Jones fight Tom Aspinall,” Askren said. “Aspinall’s got the interim belt, Jon’s got the [other] belt. It just doesn’t make any sense. Just freaking make them fight, and then if Jon beats him, then Pereira vs. Jon.
“You can’t leave Tom Aspinall sitting here with the interim belt.”
There has been a buzz surrounding Conor McGregor’s return to the octagon since it was revealed and that is evident with the insane record that’s was recently broken.
‘The Notorious’ has made a habit of taking prolonged absences from competing, though a gut-wrenching leg break has been the cause of his almost three-year hiatus this time around. As he aims to put his injury behind him, the Irishman plans to feature once more this year, targeting the highly-anticipated UFC 306 at the Las Vegas Sphere.
As stated by Dana White, the intrigue around the Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler super-fight has reached new heights. According to the UFC CEO, UFC 303 has surpassed a $ 20million gate over a month in advance, making it the highest gate in the company’s history.
“It’s already way over $ 20million,” White said regarding the UFC 303 gate during the UFC St. Louis post-fight press conference.
The previous highest gate in UFC history was the historic night at Madison Square Garden. On that night, Conor McGregor became the first simultaneous two-division UFC champion, beating Eddie Alvarez with a masterful display.
McGregor will be hoping to deliver a similar performance when he faces the tough and ready Michael Chandler at the record-setting UFC 303 later this year.
Related: Michael Chandler: ‘I think I hit harder than Conor McGregor’
Listen to Dana White’s comments and more during the UFC St. Louis press conference below.
UFC St. Louis Post-Fight Press Conferencehttps://t.co/FtMizAtVrN
— MMAWeekly (@MMAWeeklycom) May 12, 2024
The UFC 303 card
UFC 303 will see the return of Conor McGregor as he hopes to make a title push at Michael Chandler’s expense.
The pay-per-view is set to get underway on June 29 at the T-Mobile Arena. While many are pushing to book fights for the event, there have only been a handful of official matchups announced by the promotion.
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