Dana White Willing To Let Brock Lesnar Compete In UFC and WWE At The Same Time
Apparently all the rumors of former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar returning to the Octagon just won’t seem to die, even with Lesnar currently embroiled in his return to WWE.
While Lesnar’s participation at last weekend’s “Royal Rumble” pay-per-view and continuing appearances on WWE television would suggest that a return to MMA is on hold indefinitely, UFC president Dana White recently offered up news to the contrary to TMZ. Speaking in New York City prior to UFC 169, White said he might even be willing to let Lesnar sell his services to the UFC and WWE concordantly:
“He wants to. We’ll see what happens. He feels that, because of the illness he had while he was here, he feels that he wasn’t 100-percent and he’d like to take another run at it. We’ll see what happens. He wants to do both. He’s doing great over there and when his schedule opens up, he’d like to fight. Yeah, I got a good relationship with him.”
It’s odd to hear White say he’d let a fighter engage in physical work outside of his own promotion, but after all, Lesnar was the UFC’s biggest PPV draw during his run as champion. There’s no question that the polarizing Lesnar gets fans talking and ordering fight cards.
And while it may be true that Lesnar’s promising career was cut short by his unfortunate bout with diverticulitis, it’s obvious that the UFC had begun to pass him by after his thoroughly one-sided losses to Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem, who has since gone on to drop two consecutive knockouts to Antonio Silva and Travis Browne. MMA math rarely adds up correctly, but it’s tough to say that Lesnar could compete with the upper echelon of UFC heavyweights.
That’s not to say he can’t put on some exciting fights; because he can. With noted pay-per-view draws Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva on the shelf and uncertain to return, the UFC can certainly use all the big names it can get.
On one hand, it’s just strange to hear White say he’d let Lesnar do both because he’s usually not one to share talent with other entities of any kind. At the end of the day, however, Lesnar deserves a chance to prove himself again if he is truly healthy. Do you want to see Lesnar back in the cage? Would he be truly effective the second time around?
