wrestling / Columns

UFC 200: A Great Night For WWE & Professional Wrestling

July 11, 2016 | Posted by Greg De Marco
Brock Lesnar Mark Hunt UFC 200 Image Credit: UFC

Brock Lesnar’s goal wasn’t to get a win for WWE and pro wrestling at UFC 200, but he did just that.

Brock Lesnar is a fighter, and he always has been. He’s an NCAA Division I National Champion in 2000. Just two years later he won the first of his four WWE World Heavyweight Championships. Then of course there’s his UFC World Heavyweight Championship.

So when Dana White shocked the world and announced Brock Lesnar for UFC 200, it shouldn’t have been a shock to many. He loves to say that “Brock Lesnar does what Brock Lesnar wants,” but that statement is 100% accurate. And what he wanted to do was fight in the Octagon again.

He became a huge draw in professional wrestling. He left wrestling for football. When that didn’t work out, he moved into MMA. All he did there was become the UFC’s #1 box office draw…of all time. He’s the only UFC fighter to headline four different PPV events that drew over 1,000,000 buys, seen here. When diverticulitis took that away, he found his way back into professional wrestling and became the WWE’s #1 box office draw.

Again.

But the one thing that always ate away at him was how he left the Octagon. So he went back. Contracts, politics and egos be damned, Brock Lesnar went back into the Octagon and avenged his loss. Not a loss to Mark Hunt (this was their first fight), but his loss to life. Life took away his ability to fight. He did what Brock Lesnar does: life beat him once; he beat life twice. He beat life once by reigniting his professional wrestling career, then he beat it again by reigniting his UFC fighting career.

Who else could have done that? No one—and as you can see below, Brock knows this for a fact.

But even though it wasn’t promoted as such (politics never would have let it happen), this fight was UFC vs. WWE. Brock’s first foray into the Octagon wasn’t as a WWE Superstar. He walked away from that life to try his hand at being an NFL player (because he wanted to)—he was representing Brock Lesnar.

But 97 days before UFC 200, Brock Lesnar was showcased at WWE WrestleMania 32 in front of over 101,763 fans. Regardless of what shirt he was wearing, and regardless of his personal feelings, in the world’s eyes this was a WWE wrestler legitimately fighting a UFC fighter.

And the wrestler won.

Granted, this is no normal wrestler—this is Brock Freaking Lesnar, the man who destroys destroyers in both worlds. Remember his last match against John Cena?

UFC 200 was great for professional wrestling. Outside of Brock Lesnar, we may never get a WWE Superstar fighting a UFC fighter on their sport’s grandest stage again. Contracts, politics and egos will get in the way. But not for this man. Because he’s Brock Lesnar, and Brock Lesnar does what Brock Lesnar wants. And what he wanted ended up giving professional wrestling a huge victory over mixed martial arts and the UFC.

As wrestling fans, we should all worship at the altar of Brock Lesnar.

article topics :

Brock Lesnar, UFC 200, WWE, Greg De Marco