After another knockout win at UFC Nashville, what’s next for Derrick Lewis?

This past Saturday in the main event of UFC Nashville, we saw a clash between two heavyweight knockout artists. “The Black Beast” Derrick Lewis (29-12) was looking to add to his knockout record as he took on Tallison Teixeira (8-1) who was looking for his ninth first round finish.

The over / under for this fight was half a round and that was for good reason. When the fight started, Teixeira landed a shot that hit Lewis in the eye and Lewis stepped back grabbing at his eye. It wasn’t clear whether Lewis was actually hurt or whether he was playing opossum.

Teixeira pushed forward and when he did, Lewis fired bombs back at him. A huge left hook floored Teixeira and after a few follow up shots, the fight was stopped giving Lewis the TKO win in 35 seconds at UFC Nashville.

What’s next after UFC Nashville?

While Tallison Teixeira was not ranked, this was still a very big win for Derrick Lewis. After running into a rough patch a couple of years ago, Lewis is now 3-1 in his last four fights with three knockouts. Having scored this knockout in just 35 seconds, I would imagine that the UFC will try to get him back in there as soon as possible.

In terms of his next opponent, I love the idea of a rematch between him and Alexander Volkov. These two fought back in 2018 in what was essentially a title eliminator. Volkov was winning the entire fight before Lewis pulled off a huge knockout win in the final 30 seconds of the fight. Given where both men are in the division, I think it’s the perfect time for these two to run it back and should Lewis win, he’d be in line to get a shot at the UFC heavyweight title.