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What's the story?
During Wednesday's UFC 230 open workouts, Derrick Lewis claimed that he believes his next Octagon opponent, UFC Heavyweight Champion, Daniel Cormier, is too "scared" to fight his arch-rival Jon Jones for the third time and that is why Lewis has been handed the title shot in the first place.
In case you didn't know...
After an impressive Knockout win over Alexander Volkov at UFC 229, earlier in the month, Derrick Lewis now finds himself just one victory shy of making history, as he has now earned himself a shot at Daniel Cormier's UFC Heavyweight Championship.
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Cormier, prior to his title win over Stipe Miocic at UFC 226, was the pioneer of the UFC Light Heavyweight Division alongside Jon Jones, who previously, on two different occasions had defeated DC inside the Octagon.
Jones' most recent Octagon win was also over DC at UFC 214 when the former knocked out the current two-division champion to win the 205-pound title before being stripped of it as well.
The heart of the matter
According to 'The Black Beast' Derrick Lewis, he feels that the actual reason why DC agreed to fight Lewis on such short notice is due to the fact that the UFC has already confirmed Jon Jones' return to the Octagon, which is scheduled for the year-end UFC 232 pay-per-view and DC apparently did not want to sit around till January. (H/T: MMA Fighting)
“The reason I think he took the fight with me is because Jon Jones was already fighting. He didn’t want to wait until January and hear all the media talk about, ‘Why is Cormier not fighting for the 205 belt?’ They’re already saying he’s basically scared to fight Jones right now, anyway. He feels like it would be perfect to fight a guy like me that don’t have as much skills on short notice before the Jones fight and he thinks it’s going to be an easy fight for him.”
What's next?
Jon Jones will obviously challenge for the Light Heavyweight Title once again, as he and Alexander Gustafsson get set to meet in the main event of UFC 232. However, as far as Jones' rival DC is concerned, the latter will defend the Heavyweight Championship this Sunday at the Madison Square Garden.
