It's two days before UFC Fight Night 90, and Derrick Lewis is cutting weight and doing phone interviews in Las Vegas.
A reporter asks him how he's doing.
“Horrible," Lewis said. "How are you doing?”
Why are you feeling horrible?
"I'm not, really," he said. “I just wanted to see if you cared about me.”
It's been a banner year for "The Black Beast." He has gained the attention of MMA fans everywhere, in part from the three knockouts he notched in the span of six months. Just two months ago, Lewis' bunker-busting right hand put down Gabriel Gonzaga and netted the 31-year-old heavyweight a $50,000 performance bonus.
Lewis might throw the hardest punch in the UFC today.
But there's more to it. The guy's just funny. Deadpan quips, delivered in a rumbling Southern baritone, leaven his interviews. Generally good-natured but definitely, decidedly, very NSFW humor has made his social media feeds a trendy follow for hardcore fight fans.
This combination—massive power, disarming humor—is a time-tested formula for heavyweight success. It's impossible to know how or why that's the case; it just is. In fact, that mold is eminently familiar to pretty much every regular MMA watcher in the form of round-bellied, chops-busting, knockout-collecting Roy Nelson.
And what a coincidence; that's exactly who Lewis faces in the co-main event of Thursday's Fight Night. Lewis himself called for the matchup immediately after flattening Gonzaga.
“I just believe we both have heart," Lewis said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. "He's a good fighter, he's been around a long time. We’re not scared to get knocked out, ever. For certain, one of us is going to get a bonus. At least one of us.”
Lewis also is surely aware that Nelson turned 40 last month and is a loser in three of his last four. Nelson remains extremely popular, and the 14 knockouts on his ledger mean he'll always be dangerous. But the end is closer than it once was.
Could there be a changing of the guard at UFC Fight Night 90? With one fan favorite on the wane and another on the ascent, a win Thursday—a knockout would probably be ideal—will probably cement Lewis as the new people's choice in MMA's most charismatic, if not talent-rich, division.
Given that this whole thing was his idea, Lewis is probably ready to assume that mantle.
"People tell me they like my fighting style," Lewis said. "It's just kill or be killed. I'm trying to put on a show. [Nelson is] trying to put on a show, too. ... I think that's why you're seeing us here [in the co-main event]."
As Lewis' knockout tally climbs—14 in 20 pro fights and counting—so does his profile. It's clear that in MMA, entertainment pays. According to MMAFighting.com, Lewis earned a reported total of $16,000 in his UFC debut, a first-round knockout of Jack May. Almost exactly two years later, he took in $50,000 for beating Gonzaga.
Speaking of the bonus, we need to clear something up about how he spent the money.
“I paid my taxes, man," Lewis said. "I didn't do nothing with it. TMZ said I bought a T-Rex. I didn't buy no T-Rex."
It would have been a much better story if Lewis had, in fact, bought the T-Rex as reported (a T-Rex is a luxury brand of three-wheeled vehicle, a cross between a motorcycle and a dune buggy). But Lewis isn't much for idle storytelling. And if he were, he wouldn't need the T-Rex to have something to tell, given the checkered background that saw him serve time for aggravated assault as a younger man, only to fall under the wing of boxing legend George Foreman (and, eventually, MMA) after his release.
It's a quieter life these days for Lewis. When he's not training, he spends time with his three children and plays a lot of FIFA 16 on his PlayStation 4. Lewis is a huge soccer fan.
"I'm picking France to win it all," he said of the ongoing European Championship. "I like the U.S. team. I like the Houston Dynamos [of Major League Soccer]. ... The Dynamos are OK. They started off pretty good, but they're an average team right now."
Back to MMA, though, as Lewis seems confident he'll get another knockout Thursday. It's a reasonable prediction, given that all his UFC fights to date, six wins and two losses, have ended that way. Nelson probably has a wrestling and grappling edge, but he doesn't use it much anymore.
That's just fine with Lewis. All the better for usurping his position.
“I believe it’s gonna be a strong night for me," Lewis said. "I believe I’m gonna get him with a right, then a left, catch him with a combo. It's gonna be a strong night."
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more stuff like this, follow Scott on Twitter. All quotes obtained firsthand.
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