UFC heavyweight fan favorite Derrick Lewis will no longer be making the walk inside Rogers Place later today.
Lewis has been in Edmonton, Canada this week preparing for his latest opportunity to extend his lead on the promotion’s knockout throne. That was set to come on the main card of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night, which will be headlined by former two-time flyweight champion Brandon Moreno and his showdown with Amir Albazi.
There didn’t appear to be any hitches on Friday morning, with “The Black Beast” successfully hitting the scale and making weight. But alarm bells rang when he didn’t show at the ceremonial weigh-ins.
While an update at the time noted that Lewis’ fight with Jhonata Diniz remained on, it was subsequently confirmed to have been scrapped owing to a non-weight cutting medical issue on the side of the former title challenger.
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Lewis was hoping to make it back-to-back wins in 2024 following a five-round setback opposite Jailton Almeida in November 2023. He most recently got the better of Rodrigo Nascimento in the UFC Fight Night St. Louis main event this past May.
Diniz, meanwhile, planned to make the most of his career’s biggest opportunity to date. The undefeated Brazilian has knocked out Austen Lane and outpointed Karl Williams since earning a contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in September 2023.
With their fight off today’s lineup, home favorite Jasmine Jasudavicius has had her clash with Ariane da Silva (née Lipski) bumped up to the main card.
