{"id":722165,"date":"2026-06-08T02:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722165\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T02:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:24:15","slug":"derrick-lewis-blames-weight-cut-bad-back-for-poor-fight-performances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722165\/","title":{"rendered":"Derrick Lewis blames weight cut, bad back for poor fight performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derrick Lewis is set to fight Josh Hokit on the White House lawn<\/a> next Sunday June 14th, but the big question is: which \u201cBlack Beast\u201d will show up?<\/p>\n

Will it be the hard hitting and gutsy Derrick Lewis that earned the record for most knockouts in UFC history? Or the Lewis who pulls out on fight week<\/a> or ends up barely able to move in the octagon? Many fighters are pretty secretive about their ongoing health issues, especially leading into a fight, but Lewis was straight up while talking to Jon Anik about what went wrong in his last loss to Waldo Cortes-Acosta<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut one of my downfalls I have for my whole career is I\u2019ll mess my back, I\u2019ve been having back issues,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI believe they really got it dialed down now because the last fight, I had cut a lot of weight. I didn\u2019t really walk around where I usually fight at. Like, it\u2019s supposed to be 265 [pounds]. So right after I made weight, I gained, I went all the way back up to 296.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI gained way too much weight and way too fast. And it hurt me in my last fight, and I had back issues the whole time. And one of the reason why I pulled out of a lot of my fights before on the day of the fight is because I gained that weight back, and it ended up hurting my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

That all makes sense, and the solution seems simple: re-calibrate to a new walking around weight so Lewis doesn\u2019t need to cut 30 pounds to fight. Yet he\u2019s had multiple fights where the same thing happens, and now he\u2019s coming into this White House fight as the last bout added just two months from the event. Did he start adjusting and preparing for a less strenuous weight cut following the \u201cSalsa Boy\u201d loss? If he didn\u2019t, Lewis could be walking into another fight where his weight cut could lead him compromised on fight day, if it allows him to compete at all.<\/p>\n

For his part, Lewis is confident coming into his White House fight against Hokit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promise you guys, promise,\u201d he said. \u201cPromise you guys I will not let you down. Promise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bookies aren\u2019t taking too much stock in that answer. They have Hokit a -400 favorite<\/a> over the +300 dog Lewis. This wouldn\u2019t be the first time \u201cThe Black Beast\u201d has defied the odds, but at 41 years old against a surging up-and-comer like Hokit, it would be no easy task.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Derrick Lewis is set to fight Josh Hokit on the White House lawn next Sunday June 14th, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396,125620],"class_list":["post-722165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-white-house-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}