The buzz was generated with one simple picture. Over the weekend, UFC president, Dana White posted to his social media a picture of himself with former UFC heavyweight champion and current WWE Universal champion, Brock Lesnar.
If that alone wasn’t enough to stir up the rumor mill of a Lesnar return, he was also wearing a UFC t-shirt. White has now stated that there are some very good chances that the former champion will return at some point…
"They're very, very, very good." –@ufc President @danawhite to @KevinHarvick on @BrockLesnar's chances of fighting again in UFC. Listen in 👇#HappyHours pic.twitter.com/p8ZCdrR9Kt
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) February 28, 2018
Lesnar last fought in MMA at UFC 200 in July of 2016 when he took on Mark Hunt and won via unanimous decision. The fight would eventually be overturned due to Lesnar failing a drug test for clomiphene.
Prior to this fight, Lesnar hadn’t competed in five years when he lost to Alistair Overeem in the main event of UFC 141.
With all the talk of UFC running out of stars and Ronda Rousey’s move to the WWE, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the UFC would try to bring back their former biggest(literally) draw. And with his WWE contract apparently expected to expire in April around the time of WWE’s biggest event of the year, Wrestlemania, it makes all the more sense that the UFC would be working their way back into the Brock Lesnar sweepstakes at this point in time.
Back at UFC 200, former light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones was also expected to compete before he failed a drug test of his own and was removed from the card. Although he was set to fight another opponent on the card, Lesnar and Jones teased a potential fight with each other at some point after the event. Obviously, that hasn’t happened but the UFC surely could still be thinking about it.
Potentially unfortunate for them, Jones’ hearing for his most recent UFC 214 failed drug test was today and things didn’t go great. Jones had his California State Athletic Commision license revoked, was fined $250,000 and could be looking at a suspension of up to four years. So a lot still needs to be figured out before either men return.
Would you be interested in another Brock Lesnar MMA return?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/27/2018.