According to Derrick Lewis, he almost welcomed Rico Verhoeven to the UFC.
In November, Verhoeven announced that he vacated his GLORY Kickboxing heavyweight title and that his time with the promotion has come to an end. He didn’t signal that he’s done competing, and according to reporter Ariel Helwani, the 36-year-old has been in talks about transitioning to MMA, potentially the UFC.
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Lewis (29-12 MMA, 20-10 UFC) revealed that he was offered Verhoeven on the first Paramount+ card at UFC 324 on Jan. 24, but the Dutch kickboxing legend turned him down.
“Sh*t, I’ve been trying to get a fight damn near every month since July,” Lewis said on “The Beast and the Cowboy” podcast. “The fight ended in 30 seconds. I thought they were going to give me something quick. Nah. They talking about, ‘We’ve got something big for you. Don’t worry about, just sit and wait.’ I’ve been waiting, and nothing.
“They’re talking about, ‘It’s going to be something big, you’re going to like it.’ Then they’re talking about, ‘Paramount, in January.’ I’m like, man. Then they were talking about against who. First, it was supposed to be some dude from GLORY Kickboxing, the champion. … Rico – it was supposed to be against him, then he turned the fight down.”
Lewis, who’s coming off a 35-second TKO of Tallison Teixeira in July, said he was trying to rematch Sergei Pavlovich, before eventually landing Waldo Cortes-Acosta (16-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) at UFC 324 in Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Derrick Lewis claims Rico Verhoeven turned him down for UFC 324
