Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fans narrowly missed out on a potential Heavyweight banger.<\/p>\n
But according to \u201cThe Black Beast,\u201d that wasn\u2019t the fight the UFC originally wanted.<\/p>\n
Lewis revealed on his new podcast, The Beast and Cowboy<\/a>, that he was offered a bout against kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven \u2014 who recently departed GLORY and has been linked to a move into mixed martial arts (MMA) \u2014 but the former longtime champion turned the fight down<\/p>\n \u201cShit, I\u2019ve been trying to get a fight damn near every month since July,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cMy last fight ended in 30 seconds, so I thought they were going to give me something quick. They told me, \u2018Nah, we got something big for you. Don\u2019t worry, just sit and wait.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201cbig\u201d fight, however, didn\u2019t materialize.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were figuring out who it was gonna be,\u201d Lewis continued. \u201cFirst it was supposed to be some dude from GLORY Kickboxing \u2014 the champion. What\u2019s his name? Rico Verhoeven. It was supposed to be against him, but he turned the fight down.\u201d<\/p>\n If true, it strongly suggests the UFC is actively trying to bring Verhoeven into the promotion \u2014 and had enough confidence to match him immediately against a proven Top 10 veteran<\/a>. Lewis, after all, owns the most knockouts in UFC history<\/a> (16) and has competed 30 times at Heavyweight \u2014 second all time.<\/p>\n Lewis also revealed he attempted to book a rematch with Sergei Pavlovich, who knocked him out in under a minute back in 2023, but the Russian declined as well.<\/p>\n In the end, Cortes-Acosta was the only man to say yes \u2014 a logical outcome given that \u201cSalsa Boy\u201d has been calling for a fight with Lewis for over a year.<\/p>\n