Dana White Reveals Real Reason Why Brock Lesnar Chose WWE Over UFC

Brock Lesnar dropped the Universal Championship to Seth Rollins in the opening match of WrestleMania 35.

Many people expected after months of speculation that this would be the last time we saw Lesnar in a WWE ring, with a UFC return reportedly in the works.

However it was revealed last month that Brock Lesnar had actually retired from MMA, and “The Beast” returned to WWE on May, 19 to capture the Money In The Bank briefcase.

UFC President Dana White revealed the real reason why Brock opted to re-sign with WWE instead of returning to the UFC for a championship fight with Daniel Cormier in an interview with ESPN.

Some assumed that UFC’s new pay-per-view system on ESPN was the reason why Brock didn’t return to MMA, with a huge star like him possibly not being cost-effective. However, Dana White swiftly put those rumours to bed:

“That’s not why Brock Lesnar didn’t fight. Brock Lesnar got a better deal is basically what happened for Brock.”

White was asked again if UFC’s new pay-per-view model had an impact on them bringing in big stars like Brock Lesnar, and he said that the speculation was “absolutely false”:

“That’s absolutely false. And if you really look when we were on pay-per-view, we were on traditional pay-per-view, everybody was talking about how the pay-per-view business was dying. It’s dying and nobody can pull numbers anymore.  Really? We were still pulling five to seven million pay-per-view buys a year when we were on the dying, traditional pay-per-view. You can’t listen to any of this noise.”

With Brock Lesnar turning 42 this year, a return to the Octagon appears less and less likely every year.

Thanks to Fightful for the transcription.

• Dana White
• ufc
• Brock Lesnar
• wwe

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