Derrick Lewis’ spell in free agency was a short one.

Lewis, 38, the former heavyweight title challenger and owner of the record for the most knockouts in the organisation’s history, fought out his UFC deal a couple of weeks ago where he scored a quick TKO win against Marcos Rogerio de Lima (with a Masvidal-style flying knee authoring the finish).

However, one of the UFC’s most fan-friendly fighters didn’t take long to agree new terms to extend his stay, with multiple reports stating that Lewis has agreed to a new eight-fight deal which will likely see ‘The Black Beast’ competing for the UFC past his 40th birthday.

Lewis’ win against De Lima in late July snapped a three-fight streak of defeats against Sergey Spivak, Sergei Pavlovich and Tai Tuivasa.

One of the promotion’s most battle-tested heavyweights, Lewis won 13 fights between 2015 and 2021 — a sequence which involved an unsuccessful attempt to seize the UFC heavyweight title from then-champion Daniel Cormier in the UFC 230 main event in New York City in November 2018.