The UFC could really use a pay-per-view drawing boost with the loss of Georges St. Pierre for the foreseeable future. That need has led to plenty of wishful thinking that either a former star could return or a new draw could emerge. But the idea of a Brock Lesnar return to the Octagon always seemed a little far fetched.
However, the rumors have been circulating in recent days and UFC president Dana White made sure to at least not shut those rumors down when speaking at the UFC 168 pre-fight presser.
This week there were rumors that heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar would attend Saturday night’s rematch between Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman. Exactly why Lesnar is coming to Las Vegas for the fight has become a thing of speculation, but as usual people are beginning to whisper that maybe the UFC has something up its sleeve.
During Thursday’s post-press conference media scrum, UFC president Dana White was asked point blank if the UFC would take the opportunity to talk business with Lesnar.
“I honestly don’t know,” he said, repressing a grin like a man who just might know more than he wanted to say. “Honestly?” somebody goaded. “Honestly,” White said, “I don’t know.”
As pointed out later in the article, Ariel Helwani has been told by sources close to Lesnar that Brock wasn’t very serious about returning.
Lesnar does still have serious WWE commitments left, so it’s not something that would be easy or quick. There still appear to be plans for Lesnar at Wrestlemania in April so he wouldn’t be prepping for a UFC return until after that point. And I doubt any potential return would be rushed, meaning Lesnar would be 37 by the time he could conceivably return.
Add to that the idea that Lesnar is working a very nice and easy schedule with his WWE deal and making tons of money doing it and all signs point to there being next to no chance of this actually happening.
But us MMA media types have families to feed. And Lesnar is just good for business.
So…fingers crossed.