Nobody can figure out what will spark an athlete, what will inspire him to greatness. Dwayne Lewis was a middle-of-the road slugger with a 4-3 record when he faced his moment of inspiration. The Fort McMurray father of three was spending 15 hours a day in his job as a dispatcher/heavy equipment operator for Shell Canada. A week before his next fight, he got the news that the man who brought him up, his grandfather Eric Ropson, had died. Still grieving and unable to train, Lewis was unprepared for the fight. His loss dropped his record to 4-4 and he was at a bit of a crossroads. Since then, Lewis found something inside of him he did not know he had.

Lewis became an up-and-coming star in the MFC, winning six straight fights by knockout and improving his record to 10-4. “I think of him all the time now when I’m training for my fights,” said Lewis. “He would have been the first one to tell me, ‘Don’t be a slack-ass.’ “After that loss, I went back to the drawing board. Any time you mourn and stuff like that, it takes time to get your head on straight.” Even though he had a heavy work schedule and family responsibilities, it was encouragement from his wife Christa that got him going. “My wife always supported me but she really got behind me and really started pushing me,” said Lewis. “After that, it was full steam ahead.” Lewis was scheduled to fight Dave Heath of Tulsa, Okla., in tomorrow night’s light heavyweight co-main event at the River Cree Resort and Casino. But when Heath came up with a bicep injury earlier this week, Heath’s clubmate Ryan McClain stepped up.

“Heath is a name fighter ... everybody knows who Dave Heath is,” said Lewis. “Fighting him and beating him would have moved me somewhere. Fighting Ryan, I’m sure he’s a tough fighter, but I have nothing to gain but the actual win itself.”

When news came Heath was hurt, it messed with Lewis’s head for a while.

“I went into panic mode,” Lewis said. “It was ‘Am I fighting at all? Who am I going to be fighting?’ Mentally, you get prepared for a certain type of guy and all of a sudden, four days from the fight, it’s whoa. I go for a striker to a submission guy.”

Even though Lewis believes he’s giving fans their money’s worth in his style, he’s ready to roll.

“I’m a lot better on the mat than people give me credit for,” said Lewis. “I’ll show my ground when I’m forced to. For me, as a fan, I want to see somebody get knocked out.”

Lewis is expecting a huge entourage of fans from Fort McMurray to cheer him on.

“Entertaining the crowd is a very big deal for me and I have a very big crowd coming from Fort McMurray every fight,” said Lewis. “These guys come down every fight ... a five-hour drive. Each fight more and more people come out to see me.”

The main event features a three-round lightweight bout between Yves Edwards (36-15-1) of Woodlands, Texas, and Derrick Noble (25-12-1) of Champlain, Minn. QUICK JABS: This card is the first combined event of the two Pavelich MMA properties ... the first bout scheduled for 6:15 p.m.