DENVER, CO, January 26, 2012 – Somewhere right now, deep in the unforgiving high altitude of the Colorado Rockies, there’s a black beast shivering in anticipation and ready to feast in a hostile environment.
Currently the defending Fight to Win heavyweight champion, Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis was never meant for the cold. In fact, he may not have been meant to Denver at all when he originally came up to the Mile High City to fight in July of 2010. Lewis was 1-1 at the time and taking on Ryan Martinez, a highly-touted undefeated prospect was by all estimations was due for an easy win over the Houstonian.
Those projections were wrong.
Little past a minute into the second round at Fight to Win – Worlds Collide and Lewis had shocked the hometown crowd, winning by TKO and leaving Colorado with the F2W Heavyweight Championship Belt. Fast forward to present day and Lewis remains Ryan Martinez’s only loss. The Coloradoan has gone on to win his next five fights, most recently upsetting his own highly-touted prospect in NCAA wrestling champion Mark Ellis in the opening round of the ProElite HWT Grand Prix just this past weekend.
As for Lewis, he’s won his 5 out of his own 6 fights since that meeting but in many ways, he’s still struggling to define himself as a fighter and gain the respect he and his camp feel he deserves. His lone loss since 2010 was a lay-and-pray decision to Tony Johnson Jr. in Bellator in a fight where he went in with a hobbled leg. He’s beaten just about everyone Houston has had to offer at heavyweight, including Rakim Cleveland on the HDNet-televised Legacy Fghting Championship 9. For all intensive purposes, he’s run out of opponents to face in his hometown and Texas (and most states for that matter) has a shortage of top-quality opponents in his weight class. It looks like he’ll have to travel out of state from now on to get worthy fights.
And so “The Black Beast” is back in Colorado, set to defend his title this Friday night despite “feeling sick as a dog” earlier this week amidst the unfamiliarity of the high-altitude and the relatively freezing cold weather in the Rockies compared to that of Houston, which sits at sea level. Now 6-2, Derrick will be taking on his most experienced opponent yet in 9-7 Oregonian Jeremiah Constant – a fighter who’s never gone to a decision in any of his sixteen fights. Despite his champion status, it’s very likely that Derrick Lewis is being considered the prohibitive underdog yet again.
That’s okay though. He wouldn’t have it any other way. The Silverback fighter is ready for the high altitude, hostile crowd, and tough opponent.
“I want to take it even higher and higher with each fight,” he said to TXMMA.com in a past interview. I don’t see anyone beating me. I don’t care what level they’re on. I’m all heart. I came from nothing. I came from the bottom, you know, all eyes against me. I have that mark on my back already. Nobody’s going around saying that I can be successful anymore but I’m trying to show them that no matter what, you can make something of yourself.”
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