Brock Lesnar may have been one of the only other fighters who was as big of a draw as Conor McGregor and when UFC 200 took a big hit, Lesnar was the one who was called.
When Brock Lesnar joined the UFC in 2008, it became immediately clear that he was going to be one of the promotion’s biggest stars because of his crossover from the WWE.
Shortly after, Lesnar won the UFC heavyweight title despite battling a life-threatening illness, catapulting himself into superstardom.
After fighting regularly in the UFC from 2008-2011, the dominant wrestler took a five year hiatus from the sport in 2011 after a loss to Alistair Overeem. But then in 2016, he received a call to save the historic UFC 200 event after it took a huge hit.
Brock Lesnar was paid $2.5 million to save UFC 200 event after McGregor retirement
On July 9 2016, the historic UFC 200 event was scheduled to take place and it was set to be one of the biggest events in the promotion’s history, celebrating a huge milestone.
Originally the event was scheduled to be headlined by a huge rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz after Diaz pulled off the monumental upset against the Irishman just months prior.
However, months out from the event, ‘The Notorious’ took to social media and announced his retirement from the sport and the UFC announced shortly after that they were looking for a replacement.
A new main event rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier was then booked but a few days before the event Jones was removed for failing another drug test.
Fortunately at that point, the UFC had already secured Lesnar’s comeback to take place against heavyweight boogeyman, Mark Hunt in the co-main event.
Early on in the fight, both heavyweights were extremely hesitant to overextend or to throw anything big, likely in fear of what would be thrown back.
Just under halfway through the opening round, Lesnar landed his first takedown, once again showcasing his dominant control. Round two was a far more passive round from the two as only 10 significant strikes were thrown between the two.
However in round three, the Canadian once again dominated Hunt on the ground, raining down heavy ground-and-pound, coming close to stopping the fight on several occasions.
The fight ended up going to the scorecards and Lesnar picked up a unanimous decision win but just a week later, it was announced by USADA that the Canadian had violated the Anti-Doping Policy and his win was subsequently overturned to a no contest.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission released the fighter payouts following the event and Lesnar earned a $2.5 million base pay for his comeback.
Brock Lesnar called out by 58-year-old legend for boxing fight
That was the last time Lesnar has stepped into the cage despite there having been continuous calls for him to make his comeback.
Despite that, the WWE superstar has recently been called out by world famous boxer Butterbean, who is looking to make his return to combat after losing a whopping 220lbs.