Derrick Lewis returns from 'retirement,' meets ex-champ Fabricio Werdum at UFC 216

A heavyweight bout between Derrick Lewis and former UFC champion Fabricio Werdum is the latest addition to October’s UFC 216 lineup.

Lewis (18-5 MMA, 9-3 UFC) today confirmed the matchup with Werdum (21-7-1 MMA, 9-4 UFC) following an initial report from MMAFighting.com (via Instagram):

I finally got a chance to hit the reset button now I'm ready to go. October 7 in Vegas vs Werdum #ufc216??

A post shared by Derrick Lewis (@thebeastufc) on Aug 17, 2017 at 2:38pm PDT

UFC 216 takes place Oct. 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass, though the bout order hasn’t been finalized.

Lewis, No. 12 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA heavyweight rankings, will come out of a short-lived retirement for the bout. After putting together an impressive six-fight winning streak inside the octagon, “The Black Beast” suffered a fourth-round TKO to Mark Hunt in June’s UFC Fight Night 110 headliner. He retired inside the cage but quickly took back his announcement.

No. 3-ranked Werdum, meanwhile, is coming off a narrow majority decision loss to Alistair Overeem in their trilogy bout at UFC 213 in July. The Brazilian is 1-1 since he dropped the UFC heavyweight title to Stipe Miocic in May 2016.

The latest UFC 216 lineup includes:

• Tony Ferguson vs. Kevin Lee – for interim lightweight title
• Will Brooks vs. Nik Lentz
• Bobby Green vs. Lando Vannata
• Beneil Dariush vs. Evan Dunham
• Thales Leites vs. Brad Tavares
• Magomed Bibulatov vs. John Moraga
• Marco Beltran vs. Matt Schnell
• Mark Godbeer vs. Walt Harris
• Jessica Eye vs. Paige VanZant
• Derrick Lewis vs. Fabricio Werdum

For more on UFC 216, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.