Derrick Lewis’s Texas slump continued on Saturday night at UFC 277 when he was TKO’d just 55 seconds into his main card fight against Sergei Pavlovich.
Many fans were upset with the stoppage, which saw Pavlovich hit Lewis with a flurry of punches that sent “The Black Beast” to the canvas head first. Getting faceplanted during a heavyweight fight is a good way to have the ref step in and stop things, and that’s exactly what Dan Miragliotta did. Lewis was back up on his feet moments later, clearly unhappy about the ending.
During the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White was pretty clear that he thought the fight was ended prematurely.
“I like the ref, but I won’t debate that was an early stoppage,” he said. “It was definitely an early stoppage. When you jump right back up like that and you’re ready to go? Listen, he was a little rocked, but no more rocked than Julianna [Pena] was three, four times during the [Nunes] fight, and she fought five rounds. Miragliotta made a mistake, but it happens.”
“I think it was too soon, but to be fair, Miragliotta’s a great ref,” he said. “The way that he fell, probably nine out of the ten people in this room would have jumped on him and stopped the fight, including me.”
Sergei Pavlovich was perfectly content with the stoppage during the post-fight press conference. But according to his manager Ali Abdelaziz, Pavlovich and Lewis could fight again. Speaking to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, Abdelaziz said if Lewis wants to run the fight back, “he can get it if UFC wants.”
Sergei Pavlovich’s manager Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00) tells me he doesn’t think the stoppage of the Derrick Lewis fight was early last night (I would disagree), but if Derrick wants that fight again “he can get it if UFC wants.” I wouldn’t mind seeing it rebooked personally.
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) July 31, 2022
A redo may not be the worst idea for Lewis, who has now 2-3 over his last five with all three defeats coming in his home state of Texas. At least the other two losses were to heavyweight contenders like Ciryl Gane and Tai Tuivasa. Sergei Pavlovich sat down at #11 on the UFC heavyweight rankings coming into UFC 277.
While it sucks that Pavlovich won’t get the proper credit he deserves for driving Lewis back and dropping him within a minute, a quick rematch is a great way to resolve that problem, plus pad your bank account at the same time.
What do you think, Maniacs? Rematch or pass?
