THE Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) hits Asia Pacific this weekend with a “Fight Night” event happening in Auckland, New Zealand.

Happening at the Spark Arena on Sunday, “UFC Fight Night 110” will have heavyweight contenders Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis (#6) of the United States and New Zealand’s Mark “Super Samoan” Hunt (#7) headlining.

Thirty-year-old Lewis (18-4) enters the Octagon as hot as it gets, winning his last six fights.

The latest of his wins came over Travis Browne last February by way of a second-round knockout (punches).

In said fight, Mr. Lewis struggled early, hurt by Mr. Browne’s body shots, but in the second round he found his opening, landing a left hand and never relent after, pounding his opponent with a barrage of punches until the referee stopped the fight at the 3:12 mark of the round.

Following his win, Mr. Lewis expressed his “intention to become champion this year” and is looking at his fight with Mr. Hunt as another step towards accomplishing that.

Hometown bet Hunt (12-11-1), meanwhile, is looking to get back to winning after being knocked out by Alistair Overeem in the third round of their battle last March.

Mr. Hunt has since questioned his defeat by knees, believing that Mr. Overeem had an undue advantage when the latter was given IV to rehydrate prior to the fight after he said he was ill because of food poisoning.

The loss, Mr. Hunt said, only motivated him for his upcoming fight and looking forward to coming up with a win on his home turf.

Other fights in the main card of UFC Fight Night 110 are those of middleweight Derek Brunson (#8) against Daniel Kelly (#15), lightweight Dan “The Hangman” Hooker versus Ross “The Real Deal” Pearson, light heavyweight Ion “The Hulk” Cutelaba vs. Henrique “Frankenstein” da Silva, flyweight Tim Elliott (#8) against Ben “10” Nguyen (#12), and featherweight Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski versus Mizuto “Pugnus” Hirota.

UFC Fight Night 110: Lewis vs. Hunt will be shown live locally over Hyper Ch. 91 in SD or 261 in HD on Cignal TV on Sunday beginning at 10 a.m. with a replay at 6 p.m. on the same day.

In the Philippines, Cignal TV, the country’s foremost direct-to-home (DTH) company, is the home of the UFC after the two groups agreed to an extensive deal that will see the UFC beamed on various platforms. -- Michael Angelo S. Murillo