What happened when Daniel Cormier and Brock Lesnar met in the UFC?
Daniel Cormier and Brock Lesnar have a massive rivalry. The pair each won UFC heavyweight gold during their time in the octagon, but never fought each other.
Still, the pair had one of the most notable altercations in UFC history. For those unaware, here is the story of what happened between Cormier and Lesnar.
UFC 226 Altercation
At UFC 226, Cormier won the UFC heavyweight title after he knocked out UFC legend Stipe Miocic. That victory made Cormier a double champion as he held the light heavyweight title at the same time. At the time, Cormier was the second fighter to accomplish that feat. While the fight added fuel to the trilogy between Cormier and Miocic, Cormier’s post-fight octagon interview was what sparked his rivalry with Lesnar.
In short, Cormier called out Lesnar which led the latter coming into the cage and shoving Cormier. The pair then exchanged insults while Lesnar threw insults to the rest of the heavyweight division before leaving the octagon.
I’ll drop the video below if you would like to watch the exchange.
The Fight Negotiations
As you would expect, this altercation fueled fight negotiations between Cormier and Lesnar. As far as business goes, this would have been a home run. Cormier was coming off making history, Lesnar was one of the biggest pay-per-view stars of all time, and the pair had beef. This fight was going to make a lot of money which means it made a lot of sense.
This fight was a long shot, but it was possible. The issue was that Lesnar was suspended for a year after he failed a PED test at UFC 200. The punishment was a year-long suspension while his win over Mark Hunt was overturned to a no-contest. This suspension became an issue in negotiations as Lesnar had previously retired and was pulled from the USADA testing pool. In order for the fight, to take place Lesnar had to return to the testing pool and serve his suspension.
At this point in the story, you would guess the fight did not happen because of Lesnar’s steroid suspension. That is not the case, however. Lesnar eventually completed his PED suspension. All he had left to do was paid a $250,000 fine. Yes, that is a lot of money, but it was not going to stop him from getting a multi-million dollar payday.
The Fallout
At the end of the day, this fight never happened. The reason is actually quite simple. Dana White eventually came out and said it was because the WWE offered Lesnar more money to stay with on their roster. Essentially, the UFC lost the bidding war for Lesnar’s services which closed the door to an MMA fight between Lesnar and Cormier.
This explanation did start a host of conspiracy theories. The leading theory, which is actually quite possible, was that Lesnar used the UFC as a negotiation tactic to get more money from the UFC. If that is true, credit to Lesnar for pulling a quick one on the UFC and Cormier.
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