Derrick Lewis credits Francis Ngannou for UFC pay raise: ‘I could be over there getting that’

Lewis says he used the PFL’s standing offer of $2 million to fight Ngannou as leverage to secure a much bigger purse for his current UFC contract.

Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.

Dana White made it clear over the weekend that he is not a Francis Ngannou fan, and maybe some of the his recent comments came because he knows how much Ngannou is costing him to keep his heavyweights happy in the UFC.

In a new interview with Mike Heck on MMA Fighting, “The Black Beast” Derrick Lewis basically thanked Ngannou for helping him secure a new multi-million dollar contract with the UFC, despite going 1-3 over his last four fights with the promotion. This was at the end of July 2023 — Ngannou had recently signed a contract with PFL and part of the deal was a $2 million purse for his opponent.

That sounded pretty good to Lewis, who had just hit free agency after a 30 second KO win over Marcos Rogerio de Lima.

“Francis played a role in helping me get this contract I’ve got right now,” Lewis told Heck. “Because, you know, the negotiations, I said ‘Man, look what they’re doing over there. I could be over there getting that. So what’s over there? But I would like to stay here.’”

“I shouldn’t say too much,” he added with a laugh.

Lewis’ free agent stint lasted a whole week before he re-signed with the UFC. At the time we hoped he’d gotten his worth, and he certainly implied he did in this interview.

“It was there, you know?” he said of PFL’s standing offer with a smile. “I’m here.”

“Now they’re trying to space my fights out,” he added. “I’m like ‘Don’t space ‘em out, give me the three or four fights [a year] y’all wanted to give me before.”

This weekend’s bout in Edmonton against 8-0 Jhonata Diniz will be Lewis’ third fight in a year on his new contract, so he’s not exactly getting slow-played. Life seems good for “The Black Beast,” who is one of those rare fighters that maintains his value no matter how many fights he wins or loses.