The UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Spivak takes place this Saturday night at the UFC APex facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The situation in the heavyweight division is interesting because the UFC wants to find big battles until Francis Ngannou returns from his rehabilitation. One of the potential challengers in the near future for Ngannou is Sergey Spivak, who faces the former title challenger, Derrick Lewis. If Spivak wins this one, he will undoubtedly receive a chance to fight more prominent names and attack the title at some point. On the other side, Lewis fights to stay in the elite echelon, and he needs a notable win to stop the negative streak.
Derrick Lewis VS Sergey Spivak Preview
Lewis
The Black Beast lost three of the past four events, with the only success coming against Chris Daukaus, whom he KOd in the opening round of their matchup. On the other side, the losses were against Ciryl Gane, Tai Tuivasa, and Sergei Pavlovich, all via KO as well.
Lewis had a nice run prior to this period, winning four in a row, mostly via KOs, but it seems that father time is slowly beating this guy. He never improved the cardio, wrestling is terrible, and overall, the Black Beast remained a one-dimensional fighter.
Though, he will always be a threat to the entire division, due to his incredible punching power. Make no mistake, Lewis’ punch is maybe stronger than Ngannou’s, but his overall physique prevented the Black Beast from becoming a top champion. One lucky hit could obliterate any rival, including the Predator. But he needs to improve his cardio and movement. Some suggest that his development is over and that if he didn’t do it by now, he wouldn’t do it in the future, either.
Spivak
The Moldovan fella is on the rise and is knocking on the UFC top ten doors. He needs just one win to get into that company, and to be honest, if he defeats Derrick Lewis, we are more than sure that Spivak might rise much higher than place no. 10.
He had 18 appearances in the Octagon, winning on 15 occasions, and losing three bouts. Those defeats were against Walt Harris, Marcin Tybura, and Tom Aspinall. However, he holds wins over some pretty respectable names in the organization – Tai Tuivasa, Alexey Oleinik, Greg Hardy, and most recently Augusto Sakai, whom he knocked out in the second round.
Spivak is a pretty versatile fighter, with seven of his wins coming via KO, and one fewer by submission, which indicates that he knows how to behave on the mat. The submissions were rarely used since joining the UFC, and that’s when Spivak began developing punching power which ultimately became his strongest weapon.
Prediction
Lewis is a more experienced fighter, but he was in the last two bouts as well. Still, we don’t think the Black Beast will allow himself to have another poor training camp. He was terrible on the previous two occasions, and also, the officials against Pavlovich stopped the bout a bit earlier. We don’t doubt that Spivak is a good fighter, but simply, we assess that Lewis wins this bout.
