Derrick Lewis looking for rematch with Francis Ngannou
With his scheduled fight against Jairzinho Rozenstruik being postponed, Francis Ngannou may be looking for a new opponent and a former opponent of his, Derrick Lewis is calling for a rematch.
Although their first fight was a letdown, Lewis, who fought Francis Ngannou at UFC 226 in 2018, did an interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani on Instagram and said that he would like to run it back against Ngannou. Lewis noted that watching the recent middleweight title fight at UFC 248 between Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero, which many considered a disappointment due to lack of action, has him ready to rematch Ngannou.
Derrick Lewis says he liked the Adesanya-Romero fight because now people will can longer say his fight against Francis Ngannou is the most boring fight of all time. 😂 From today’s @espnmma IG live. pic.twitter.com/WhU0CVyHRT
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 19, 2020
“I’m happy it ended the way it did because everybody was giving me and Francis hell for a long time talking about our fight being the boringest fight ever. They got to have beat us, c’mon man. So that’s why we have to do a rematch. Me and Francis got to do a rematch. I had back problems and I wasn’t training the way I was supposed to that fight, so I’m on it now, so it’s got to be.”
Derrick Lewis is so confident in himself in a rematch now that he’s healthy, that he guaranteed to fans and Ariel Helwani that the second fight would be far more entertaining than their first.
“I guarantee it will be more entertaining than what it was, it’ll be at least one punch more than it was the last fight.”
Since their first fight, Lewis has gone 3-2 including a title fight against former champion Daniel Cormier which he lost. In his most recent fight, Lewis defeated Ilir Latifi by unanimous decision at UFC 247 in February, and is now riding a two-fight winning streak. Francis Ngannou has not lost since his fight against Lewis, and has compiled a three-fight winning streak over Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez, and Junior dos Santos.
While Ngannou’s fight against Rozenstruik was postponed, there’s been no word if it will be rescheduled once the UFC continues their events.
