Derrick Lewis has claimed that Dan Miragliotta has a ‘conspiracy’ against him, accusing the UFC referee of stopping his last two fights early.
Lewis has lost three of his last four fights, with Miragliotta having officiated all three of those stoppage defeats. And the heavyweight has suggested that the two most recent losses occurred because Miragliotta waved the fights off prematurely.
Ahead of Lewis’ Fight Night main event with Serghei Spivac on Saturday (4 February), the American said on Friday: “[My critics] act like they didn’t see that last fight. [The referee is] going to stop the fight all early and this and that, and they’re like, ‘I don’t know if Derrick still has it.’
“Come on, man. Dan Miragliotta, whatever his name is, he’s got a conspiracy out on me. The last two fights I lost, he’s been the ref. If he’s the ref on this fight, I’m going to be like, ‘I don’t want him.’
“If they’re still going to try to put him in the cage and he’s going to say, ‘Fighter, you ready? Fighter, you ready?’ I’m going to say, ‘No.’
“We’re going to need Herb Dean or somebody up in there, because [Miragliotta] ain’t reffing none of my fights. No offence to him, he’s a great guy – I’m pretty sure – but I don’t want him reffing none of my fights.”
Lewis last fought in July, suffering a TKO loss to Sergei Pavlovich within 55 seconds. In his previous bout, the Texan was knocked out by Tai Tuivasa inside two minutes in February.
Those results followed Lewis’ first-round knockout of Chris Daukaus in 2021, which came after a TKO defeat by Ciryl Gane with the interim heavyweight title on the line earlier that year.
“I’m telling you, it’s a conspiracy,” Lewis laughed. “They need to do a background check on Dan, for real. I’m serious.”
