The UFC returns to St. Louis on May 11th and today, the promotion revealed the main event. Headlining the Fight Night will be a battle of ranked heavyweights. Fan favorite and knockout king Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis (27-12) gets another main event as he takes on Rodrigo Nascimento (11-1).
Starting with Nascimento, this is going to be a huge moment for him as he’s getting his first UFC main event. He will make the walk having won three fights in a row. After getting a first round submission in 2020 on The Contender Series, Nascimento earned a contract with the promotion.
After getting a contract, Nascimento lost his promotional debut against Chris Daukaus. He won his next fight by TKO but it was later overturned to a No Contest. After serving a suspension, Nascimento returned in 2022 and has won three straight. Now, he’ll get the main event treatment against the UFC’s knockout king.
UFC St. Louis
It has been a rough couple of years for The Black Beast. Back in 2021, Lewis earned himself an interim title fight against Ciryl Gane after he had won four fights in a row including a brutal second round knockout over Curtis Blaydes. Lewis was stopped by Gane in that fight but bounced back with a big TKO win over Chris Daukaus.
However, after the Daukaus win, Lewis lost three fights in a row all by stoppage. Last July, he retuned at UFC 291 and stopped Marcos Rogerio de Lima in 33 seconds. From there, he took a short-notice main event against Jailton Almeida where he was taken down over and over for five rounds.
Lewis needs a big performance here and he needs to show that he’s still got a lot left in the tank. I wouldn’t bet on this one lasting very long.