Just Make Daniel Cormier vs. Brock Lesnar Title vs. Title

Well, New York, you got that Sijara Eubanks fight you’d been waiting for. I hope it was worth it.

That has to be quite the trip, going from being offered the main event at Madison Square Garden to getting bumped so hard you aren’t even considered good enough to headline the prelims. That has to hurt.

Of course, she didn’t make things any better by missing weight and then putting on a pretty boring performance against Roxanne Modafferi, a fighter who had to spend 5 years and drop a weight class just to get a win in the UFC.

It doesn’t really help to throw all that back at the fans by suggesting we try and cut 20 pounds, which is insane, not to mention something I don’t get paid to do. I didn’t sign a contract saying I could make weight for a fight. Sijara did. And she failed to do it. And she wonders why no one was enthused with the thought of her fighting in the main event for a title in a division she can’t even make weight for.

Good job, Sijara. Go get some fans.

Overall, UFC 230: Hey, Look at all the Middleweights was an entertaining show. UFC used the main card to show off a couple prospects at 185 to varying degrees of success, as Karl Roberson, he of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contenders fame earned a one-sided decision against Jack Marshman and Jared Cannonier, attempting not to stink up his third division, stopped WSOF Champ Champ David Branch with punches in the second round.

Israel Adesanya is definitely starting to prove to be quite the stud too. Some of his UFC performances haven’t been the most notable but his one round destruction of Derek Brunson will go a long way in pushing him towards the title of “Jon Jones, Jr.” that everyone assumes he’s after. We just hope it comes without all the drug issues or crashing cars into telephone polls and/or pregnant women.

At least he’s not trying to be disingenuous with his personality, unlike some people…

You go ahead and pretend to piss on that cage, young man. You keep up the strong performances and you’ll be taking Brock Lesnar-sized dumps in the middle of that cage in no time.

Hey, speaking of Brock, Daniel Cormier. He fought on Saturday. He wasn’t planning to a month ago but UFC needed to find a way to move on from Sijaragate 2018 and felt it was worth paying him a bunch of money to fight Derek Lewis. I think anybody with DC’s experience and skill level would have taken that fight too.

That’s not to say Lewis wasn’t deserving of the fight. There were writers last week saying this fight was another example of UFC devaluing their titles but Cormier vs. Lewis is a poor example of that. Lewis may have said it himself that he didn’t feel ready for a title shot but he did enter the fight having beaten Francis Ngannou right after he fought for the title, as well as knocked out top 5 ranked Alexander Volkov.

We all know talent at heavyweight is so sparse it doesn’t take much to be considered a contender there, so Lewis’s credentials made him just as deserving as anyone else right now with the possible exception of Stipe, who I’m sure will get another crack at the title…after DC retires. *WINK*

And we are getting close to the end of the timeframe Cormier gave this year for finishing up his career, as he wants to be done by the time he turns 40 in March.

That means it’s time to get back to the iceberg the sport was planning to ram into before this MSG diversion: DC vs. Brock.

And hey, speaking of fights that devalue championships, how about the upcoming fight between a champion who only got a title shot because the UFC needed a big Payperview main event and was still exploring their newfound champion vs. champion fetish, and a challenger without a legitimate victory since the first Obama administration who’s still a top draw because of his ability to convince Vince McMahon that he’s worth promoting more than the athletes who are around on a daily basis (and, unfortunately, rightfully so).

By all accounts, it appears to still be a go, as Cormier did his part in defending and retaining the UFC Heavyweight Championship by outclassing Lewis and choking him out inside of two rounds. Dana White has also said it’s next, even though no announcements have been made yet as far as when the fight may go down. We just know that it can’t happen until Brock finishes serving his USADA suspension for his violation related to his UFC 200 fight, but that should be done by January.

Brock has certainly been keeping himself busy in the meantime, though, winning the WWE Universal Championship for the second time at WWE’s Crown Jewel event two weeks ago. He beat the man who is presumably taking over the top spot as the face of the company after Roman Reigns’s leukemia diagnosis, Braun Strowman, which means their match two weeks ago could be the start of a program that lasts all the way through Wrestlemania next year.

That makes things interesting since the rumors (who doesn’t love some pro graps rumors?) say Brock wasn’t supposed to even be champion right now. He was supposed to be done for the foreseeable future so he could focus on his UFC return. Instead, he already has a match lined up for this year’s Survivor Series and, since his title won’t be on the line in that match, he’ll be wrestling at least one more time between now and next spring.

It makes you wonder when he’ll find time to fight Cormier…

Actually, no it doesn’t. If UFC wants the fight to happen and if WWE, who agreed to allow Brock to take fights while working for them, is good for it, then the fight is going to happen.

The question that is still to be determined is how big will the stakes be?

Obviously, the UFC Heavyweight Championship will be on the line, but what if UFC and WWE decided to take it a step further and have Brock put the Universal Championship up for grabs too?

Cormier made mention of the WWE title in his UFC 230 victory speech, telling Brock to bring it with so DC can become WWE Champion too and, honestly? I am so onboard with that.

WWE is in a bit of a flux trying to figure out how to move forward without Reigns, especially with Wrestlemania planning already underway, and we all know WWE is always looking for ways to extend its reach outside the wrestling bubble.

This could be the thing that accomplishes that, at least in the short term: sending their champion from the scripted world of fighting to face the champion of the real world of fighting, to determine who the best of both worlds is.

In a universe (lulz) where the pro wrestling leader is trying to present itself as more realistic and more believable to an audience that is as skeptical to what it’s seeing as it’s ever been, and where the MMA leader is as transparent as ever in its willingness to engage in gimmicks and fights that are purely for entertainment purposes and bare nothing resembling integrity of sport, and a DC vs. Brock, UFC vs. WWE Superfight seems like the perfect marriage of both ideologies.

DC vs. Brock for both the UFC and WWE Championships could be a window into what the future of both sports may ultimately end up becoming. Or it could just be something amusing that catches a bunch of headlines and gets mainstream outlets talking about both companies for a little bit, which, at the end of the day, is all they are after anyway.

It can’t be any worse for UFC and WWE to go into business with each other than to go into business with the Saudis, right?

And Cormier is as perfect a guy to try this with as anyone considering he’s a huge pro wrestling fan and would be more than able to hold his own in a promo battle with “The Beast.” The shoving match the two got into after Cormier won the heavyweight title at UFC 226 was enough to give a taste of what could come in a full blown feud between the two.

Sure, some fans decried the event for how fake it made the sport look, but plenty of other people saw it and were ready to throw their money down. Anyone who denies how big an event Cormier vs. Lesnar will be is depriving themselves of the fun the rest of us will be having.

That’s why, for as many pure sport fans would hate the idea of seeing the two men engage in a fully realized pro wrestling feud in the lead-up to their MMA fight, there’s also a lot of people who would be into it.

As a fan of both MMA and wrestling, I think it’d be quite fascinating to see how both promotions would work together to feature the fight within their own programming. I mean, I don’t expect to see Joe Rogan explaining why the F5 is such an effective finisher but it could be interesting if, say, Brock is laying siege to the main event of Monday Night Raw and, suddenly, Team AKA’s music starts playing.

I’m not saying I want to see something along the lines of what American Top Team did in Impact Wrestling last year (blecch…) but seeing Cormier in full pro wrestling mode in front of a pro wrestling audience could be quite amusing.

Plus, if things were to get physical in that world, I have no doubt that Cormier’s fandom and professionalism would mean he takes it seriously and actually spends time learning how to do it right. Hell, if Cormier is in need of something to do after he retires from MMA, or ever falls out with UFC to the point they stop using him to call fights, maybe WWE will keeps its doors open and let him try their sport out.

I mean, they’re letting Ronda Rousey do it…

Cormier did say he was getting a tryout as a WWE commentator and even if that’s only because Fox Sports likes him and wants to keep working with him after UFC leaves for ESPN next year and WWE Smackdown arrives to takes its place, It could still be where his future lies and a program with Lesnar could be a sneak peek at that.

I’m well aware this whole idea is nuts and could serve to damage both sports in the eyes of the casual fan who doesn’t follow either or follows one but not the other but, if both companies are looking for opportunities to make a lot of money so they don’t have to be slaves to the Saudis and/or Conor McGregor the rest of their lives, this could be the shot in the arm they need.

Or it could be a most glorious disaster. Either way, it should at least garner as much attention as a Floyd Mayweather New Years fight in Japan.

Nobody teases fans of multiple sports better than Money. Hey, maybe we can now get that Big Show rematch that nobody has been asking for. Open up that pay window…

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.