The heavyweight prospect won’t turn 26 until December, and conservatively speaking, could have a dozen years ahead of him inside the Octagon, which would — using his earlier math — give him a chance to try and chase down Lewis’ knockout record. But setting milestones aside, Teixeira has already shown he belongs as this level, having marched down and dispatched Tafa on his home turf with aplomb at UFC 312 in February.
If he’s able to do something similar against Lewis on Saturday, Teixeira believes that the way he is viewed will have to shift.
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“I think winning and beating him means I will no longer be seen as ‘a promise,’ but seen as a reality,” offered the thoughtful Team Lucas Mineiro representative. “It’s like whenever I had the last fight, people were saying the same thing: ‘Tafa is a tough guy, he’s got heavy hands, you’re gonna have to maybe take him down to be able to beat him.’ There I was, and I didn’t have to do that. Now it’s the same thing: ‘Derrick Lewis, very tough guy, heavy hands, this is what you need to do.’
“I think people have not seen it, but they don’t understand what I understand, and that’s what they’re gonna see,” he added. “They haven’t seen the tools, but they will understand that I have all the tools to be a champion, and that I am the future of this division; that I can be a champion, and a very dominant one, as well.”
