Derrick Lewis doesn’t dress up his tattoo stories. Some pieces came from prison, others are cover-ups, and one followed a drunken night in Las Vegas. The UFC heavyweight’s ink is connected to Houston, family, faith, fighting, and the difficult years he made it through before becoming a professional athlete.
In his GQ Tattoo Tour, Lewis jokes around but explains the designs plainly. Born in New Orleans and raised in Houston, he has gorillas inspired by his Silverback gym, a Houston Texans tattoo, religious lettering, a crown and boxing gloves, plus a few direct reminders of how he tries to live. Some older tattoos were covered as his life changed.
Here’s a closer look at Derrick Lewis’s Knockout King and chest tattoos, sticking to the designs he has explained rather than guessing at every mark in a weigh-in photo.
The Houston Texans piece marks the place he calls home
The most recent tattoo Lewis showed in the GQ interview was a Houston Texans design. He was born in New Orleans but has lived in Houston since 1998, and speaks warmly about the city. The tattoo is less about wearing a sports logo for its own sake than marking the place that became home after he moved there.
Houston also figures in stories beyond fighting. During Hurricane Harvey, Lewis drove his lifted truck through floodwater to help people. The Texans tattoo sits within that larger connection to the city. It says where he belongs, especially for a fighter whose public life is closely tied to Houston and its fans.
Two gorillas replaced the first tattoo he got for his mother
Lewis says his first tattoo was a cross for his mother. He later covered it with gorillas on both sides of his body. The choice had a few connections: he trains at Silverback, gorillas are among his favourite animals, and he has built a fighting persona around the way they move and strike.
He connects the gorilla imagery to pounding his chest and slamming the ground, too. That makes the designs feel tied to how he fights, not just like tough-looking animals from a flash book. The cover-up also marks a change: the cross belongs to a younger Lewis, while the gorillas reflect the fighter he became.
Lewis has said that most of his tattoos were done in prison, which helps explain the collection’s rougher, more personal look. He described making do with improvised equipment, including electricity from an exit sign and ink from a pen. It’s an unusual detail, but it’s part of the tattoos’ history.
Respect and loyalty are written into the collection
One tattoo reads respect and loyalty. Lewis says those are values he tries to live by: he expects respect from others and sees himself as loyal. The wording is direct, much like the way he explains his tattoos. He doesn’t build a mystery around every phrase; if it matters to him, he puts it on his skin.
That idea connects a few of the other designs. The gorillas relate to his gym and fighting identity, the Houston tattoo to home, and the lettering to how he wants to treat people. The pieces don’t all match, but their themes overlap naturally.
The owl is a cover-up of his old Black Beast tattoo
Lewis once had “Black Beast,” his MMA nickname, tattooed on his neck. He later covered it with an owl, saying he considers himself wiser than he used to be. It’s a small change with a clear point: he replaced an old nickname with something that reflected a different stage of his life.
The owl also shows how a cover-up can become part of the story. The old lettering is hidden, but the reason for replacing it remains. Lewis doesn’t pretend he has always made the same choices. He has changed, and the ink records that in a very literal way.
Respect, loyalty and Lord Knows are the phrases he lives by
Another tattoo reads Lord knows. Lewis describes it as religious, then makes a joke about what he might do with his hands. That mix of sincere words and a grin feels like him. The phrase gives the collection a faith element without turning the whole thing solemn.
His hands are part of the practical side of the story, too. Lewis is a heavyweight known for his punching power, so hand tattoos naturally become part of how fans read his image. He doesn’t claim the ink makes him dangerous; the designs simply sit where his work happens.
Knockout King, boxing gloves and hard times
Lewis has a crown, boxing gloves, and the words Knockout King, alongside “hard times” as part of the same fighting-and-survival theme. The crown is confident, but the words add context. He sees the tattoo as a reminder of what he made it through before his UFC career brought a different life.
He started MMA training after leaving prison in 2008 and had his first amateur fight in 2009. That background matters: these aren’t just generic boxing designs. They come from a life that included street fighting, prison, training, and eventually professional competition. The crown and gloves are easy to read; the words make the story personal.
The small symbols fill in his family and faith references
Photos show more lettering and small symbols across Lewis’s arms and torso, but he hasn’t publicly explained every mark. The documented designs include religious words, the Houston Texans tattoo, gorillas, the owl, the crown, gloves, “Knockout King,” and “hard times.” Those are enough to see the main themes without inventing meanings for blurred details in weigh-in photos.
He has also considered getting his wife’s name, though he hadn’t done it when the GQ video was filmed. They had been together for 11 years and married for two at the time. He joked about putting her name under his foot. The comment captures his attitude to future tattoos: he’s open to adding one, but isn’t racing to fill every patch of skin.
Why the tattoos fit Derrick Lewis better than a perfect sleeve would
Lewis’s tattoos bring together cover-ups, rough prison work, hometown pride, and symbols tied to family or his career. They don’t look like one artist planned the whole body at once, which is part of why they feel believable. The designs accumulated as he moved through different places and versions of himself.
The rough edges belong to the story. A tattoo made with improvised tools in prison carries a different history from a professional piece added after a UFC win. A gorilla beside a cover-up says something different from the Houston Texans design. Together, they form a timeline rather than a coordinated fashion statement.
There’s humour in how Lewis talks about the collection, too. He warns people against getting their first tattoo drunk in Las Vegas, jokes about his wife’s name, and seems happy to explain the pieces he kept. He doesn’t claim every decision was perfect; he says the tattoos are his, cover-ups and strange origin stories included.
For anyone interested in meaningful fighter tattoos, the strongest ideas aren’t always the biggest. Lewis’s designs point to home, family, faith, loyalty, work, and the difficult parts of reaching a goal.
He often connects the tattoos to something he does. The gorillas link to his gym and fighting style, the Houston mark to the city he chose as home, and the crown and gloves to the career he built after a hard earlier chapter. Even the owl is about changing and seeing himself differently. That’s a more useful way to read the ink than simply counting what shows in a photo.
His tattoos also leave room for change. Lewis has covered older work, left other pieces visible, and talked about what he might add next. The Houston design came after years in the city; the owl replaced a nickname he no longer wanted; the gorillas link his earlier prison tattoos to the gym and career that followed. His jokes help keep a complicated history from turning into a polished highlight reel.
Watch Derrick Lewis explain his ink
GQ’s Tattoo Tour is the clearest place to hear Lewis talk about the gorillas, the owl, the Houston tattoo, and the work he got in prison.