Former UFC heavyweight title challenger Derrick Lewis was slated to face off against Serghei Spivac this weekend in UFC Vegas 65‘s main event. Unfortunately, just an hour before the main card was set to begin, it was announced that Lewis had suffered a non-covid, non-weight cut related medical issue that has forced him out of the fight.
As a result, the main event between Lewis and Spivac has been cancelled. Lewis was entering this fight with a 1-3 record in his last four fights. After a four fight win streak from 2019-2021, he earned a shot at the interim heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane. He came up short in that fight and was able to rebound with a finish over Chris Daukaus in his next fight. Since then, Lewis had lost two fights in a row as he headed into his main event with Spivac looking to snap his losing streak.
As for Spivac, he had compiled a record of 5-1 in his last six outings as he looked to pick up the biggest win of his career to add to his two fight win streak against Lewis. A win over Lewis would have propelled him into the top ten, now Spivac could wait for his fight with Lewis to be rebooked, or he will matchup with another opponent soon.
As a result of the main event cancellation, the card will continue as planned with the new main event being a three round light heavyweight matchup between Kennedy Nzechukwu and Ion Cutelaba. Nzechukwu looks to pick up a second straight win in this fight after he recently snapped a two fight losing streak with a win in his most recent fight against Karl Roberson at UFC Vegas 58. On the other hand, Cutelaba comes in looking to snap a two fight losing streak with a win over Nzechukwu after suffering back-to-back submission losses against Ryan Spann and Johnny Walker.
The new UFC Vegas 65 main card will now proceed as follows:
Kennedy Nzechukwu vs. Ion Cutelaba
Chase Sherman vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta
Andre Fialho vs. Muslim Salikhov
Jack Della Maddalena vs. Danny Roberts
Charles Johnson vs. Zhalgas Zhumagulov
