Brock Lesnar held the UFC Heavyweight Championship for nearly two full years from 2008-10 but has since transitioned back to pro wrestling via a highly-lucrative and decorated career in WWE. He’s held the WWE and/or Universal Championship seven times for a combined 1,156 days and main-evented multiple WrestleManias since returning to the promotion, but speculation about him returning to the UFC for another big-money fight has always lingered. After initially retiring from MMA in 2011, he returned to action in 2016 at UFC 200 and beat Mark Hunt via unanimous decision. That fight was later overturned due to Lesnar failing a drug test.
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Jon Jones, one of the UFC’s biggest draws, recently moved up to the heavyweight division and won the UFC Heavyweight Championship in quick fashion against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285. With no obvious challenges beyond former champion Stipe Miocic, Lesnar’s name was brought up. Jones previously called out Lesnar way back in 2017, proclaiming, “Brock Lesnar, if you want to know what it feels like to get your ass kicked by a guy who weighs 40 pounds less than you, meet me in the Octagon.” Lesnar responded at the time by telling an AP reporter, “Be careful what you wish for, young man.”
UFC President Dana White was asked about the potential dream match this week in an interview with Justin Barrasso. Even though it could bring in a massive buy rate for the UFC, White doesn’t think it’ll happen.
“Brock and I have a great relationship, and we always have, but I don’t think Brock wants to fight any more. Brock’s made a lot of money. He came into the UFC and won the heavyweight title. He’s got nothing left to prove. I don’t think he’d want to do it,” White said.
The closest anyone got to getting Lesnar back inside the Octagon was former heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier, who called for Lesnar to meet him in the cage after he won the title at UFC 226. Lesnar obliged, and reports of a title match for 2019 quickly started popping up only for nothing to materialize.
“We laid the foundation, but we did not get the payoff,” Cormier said in an interview with ESPN last year. “It was a slow build. The build was far too slow. Yeah. It was like a year build with no WrestleMania match,”
