Heavyweight fighter Derrick Lewis has been bothered by a series of back injuries for the majority of his professional MMA career.
The fighter may have found the solution to those back problems in some steroids, which are apparently USADA approved.
?Right now it?s going pretty good,? Lewis said on The MMA Hour. ?The shots that I took, they said it should last like 10 to 12 months. It wasn?t stem cells or nothing like that. It was something ? they shot me like 20 times in one spot, it was some type of steroids. For sure, yeah. We sent the pictures and sent the name of the medicine that they were gonna shoot into me before I even took it and they (USADA) said that it?s been approved.?
Lewis fights for the first time with his newly approved steroids at UFC 229, where the heavyweight faces former Bellator MMA Heavyweight Champion Alexander Volkov.
If the steroids continue working like they have, a confident Lewis doesn?t see any scenario where the injured back causes him to miss another UFC fight.
?I feel good. I feel real mobile right now,? he said. ?All of my fights, especially all of my UFC fights my whole career, I?ve never been in there without any kind of impingement and pain wrong with my back. It just amazes me that I made it this far with all the pain that I have to endure during all of my fights. We?re taking it step-by-step, day-by-day. We?re taking it real slow, because ain?t no way I?m going to pull out of this fight again. I?ve pulled out in the past and I ain?t planning on doing it for this fight here.?
UFC 229 takes place on Saturday, October 6 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.