Mark Hunt scored a big win Saturday night at UFC Fight Night 110: Lewis vs. Hunt in Auckland, New Zealand. Stopping Derrick Lewis in the fourth round after an all-out war, Hunt found himself back in the win column at age 43. With Lewis being well up in the top ten, the win gets Hunt another crack at a highly ranked fighter.
Hunt talked about the bout following the event at the UFC’s post-fight press conference. On whether he felt Lewis starting to break, Hunt explained that “Derek’s a tough guy, it was just a matter of time, he started getting tired, you know what happens in the top end if you get tired. It was a matter of time.”
It also helped that his own camp went well, including a very, very easy weight cut. “I felt pretty good. the cut, there wasn’t much of a cut, I ate all the way up to the day before the weight-ins” Hunt told the assembled media members. “I had a great camp and that was the main thing, I didn’t really have to cut any weight.”
Overall? “I felt pretty good about the performance.”
The Super Samoan also downplayed retirement talks. “I love to get beat up” he joked. “I mean shucks, there’s nothing else I’m good at.” On a more serious note, the fighter did indicate he plans on finishing out his contract, meaning he has a few fights left.
He’s also still on the warpath for cheaters, and suggested once again that the solution to the performance enhancing drug problem in the sport is financial. “Take away the financial incentive, then cheaters wouldn’t want to do it. Then they’ll think twice, ‘you know, if I get caught…'” Hunt suggested. “If you take away the money, they wouldn’t do it. It’s just a clause in the contract that saying ‘a cheater doesn’t benefit at all.’ Because right now, it pays to cheat but if you take that away, it makes it pretty even.”
That brought the Kiwi fighter to Alistair Overeem, the last man to defeat him in the cage. “He’s always going to be a cheating bum, that’s what he’s always going to be to me” Hunt said. “Regardless of whether he beat me, he’s always going to have the cloud over his head. All his achievements. You don’t know whether they were done by steroids or not.”
“Sorry Alistair, you’re a cheat” he finished.
Interestingly, though, Overeem — and Junior dos Santos — were the two names Hunt indicated he’d like a rematch with.
