Issue 171
October 2018
Does drugs cheat Brock Lesnar deserve a shot at double-champ, DC?
It’s not easy to condone the return of Brock Lesnar in a superfight with Daniel Cormier for the UFC heavyweight belt. Pick the headlines out of the following: Drugs cheat; banned-substance taker; out for two years.
But so often in fight sports, the right man in the right place at the right time will get the nod. Ergo, flip it and gaze at the other side of the Lesnar coin: WWE star. Former UFC heavyweight champion. Social media and PPV Goliath. Giant human being.
You can headline it as you will, but the huge athlete is a curiosity to the human race, and a serious star in the marketing firmament.
Put Lesnar on a card, and it all but guarantees close to one million pay-per-view buys. It’s as simple as that. And, indeed, that a certain Mr. McGregor is needed back in an Octagon with alacrity.
That has to be uppermost in the minds of the marketing men at the UFC right now, as that $4.5 billion mortgage payment beckons for IMG/WME, the owners of a UFC juggernaut steering towards a new summer, in search of the authorship of new stars.
Where are the Diaz brothers?, Conor McGregor? and Jon Jones? When the ringmasters executives of the Octagon really need them? That quartet of fighters are busy spending or suspended from being busy fighting and they form the arc of the most thrilling draw in the UFC’s locker. They are all pay per view bankers. But missing...
As UFC 226 drew to a close, we in the arena and those watching on television experienced a moment in which UFC fused with WWE in large measure, and in many ways ethics and spandex leggings got in a right old mix.
We love the Lesnar who thumps the ground like an overgrown ape, pushes past gate guards, and shoves the new hero Daniel Cormier before he has barely paused for breath after his greatest moment of sporting glory. Drama. Hilarity. Fun. Narrative.
But Lesnar’s return is utterly ironic with a dust-down of the bare facts. Two years ago at this very same T-Mobile Arena at UFC 200, Big Brock dropped a brick after he had claimed a fine victory against Mark Hunt. Thump.
It was revealed he had tested positive for a banned substance. Whack. He had twice tested positive for the estrogen blocker clomiphene, in pre-competition testing. Kaboom. He was suspended. Utterly embarrassing for his paymasters. In his return, much as he is signing up to a drug testing pool, there lies a morass of conflict.
Let’s be straight. The UFC has done more than any organization in fight sports to rid the landscape of PEDs, and they are to be applauded for that by bringing in their testing partner, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), to clean up the sport. A legacy of the Fertitta/White era, they are still working together to create a clean sport, for the benefit of the athletes.
But the UFC made a bold move bringing back Brock. Yes, he will serve out his time but he is clearly tainted, as is Jones when he returns... and if Cormier faces Lesnar, isn’t that the same as facing a Jones?
Same problem, same issues, similar offences after all.
It looks destined to be DC-Lesnar, unless McGregor’s fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov rips open the canopy late 2018. That fight will generate arguably $100 million for the UFC, and that lump may just see the UFC think again and just force Lesnar into another leave of absence.
Time will tell, and if not, we’ll get BL vs DC, a curiosity fight which blurred the lines, but which we will all pay for. Simply because we can’t resist a big sell.
...
