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Derrick Lewis last fought in Houston at UFC 265 where he lost by TKO to Ciryl Gane. Lewis was in front of his home crowd of Houston, Texas. It should have been a great experience but it ended up being exactly the opposite for the heavyweight.
Derrick Lewis admits there was a ton of pressure heading into UFC 265. The power-puncher admits the pressure got to him and it's something he never wants to happen again.
“I don’t even want to experience that ever again,” Lewis said on The MMA Hour. “It was too much pressure, too much pressure. Too much. To the point where I really was calling people up, let me get some weed off ‘em so I can relax my nerves during fight day. That type of pressure,” he added.
Going to prison was the last time Derrick Lewis felt that kind of pressure. The UFC heavyweight didn't even feel relief when the fight was over, that's how bad it was.
“Never felt it that bad,” Lewis said. “Actually, before court. Before I went to court, before they gave me some time to go to prison. That’s the other time I felt so much pressure, but other than that it was the Houston card. It was pretty bad as well.”
“[UFC 265] was the same day that I got out, the same day I fought. It was, like, 13 years to that day, it was the same day I was released. So I put a lot of pressure on myself as well because it would have made a great story. From the worst of times to the best of times.”
Derrick Lewis wasn't even able to find relief from the fight being over. He was embarrassed and upset with the way he fought at UFC 265.
“I don’t think it was like a weight lifted,” Lewis said of his feelings after the fight. “Just real embarrassed. I felt embarrassed to fight. Felt embarrassed, I felt like I should have did a lot more than what I did. I was gun-shy the whole fight. I didn’t want to pull the trigger and I was too stationary. It’s a lot of stuff.”
“I could go on and on about a lot of things that I should have done different in that fight, but it just didn’t happen, so you’ve got to just move on and just better myself. If that time comes again and we face each other again, it will be a different outcome, I believe.”“I say that all the time,” Lewis said.
“I believe so, all the time. My coaches believe that as well. Everyone believes it would have been a lot different if it wasn’t in Houston. On that big of a stage and all of that stuff going on, I don’t believe the outcome would have ended like it did.”
