If you missed this weekend’s most gasp-inducing pro wrestling/MMA hybrid news, Brock Lesnar is returning to the octagon to face Mark Hunt at UFC 200. The July 9 fight is being done with WWE’s blessing, and Brock will return to the squared circle — a lot of shapes in play here — for SummerSlam on August 21.
Lost in the shuffle of the Brock news is this note from FloSports’ Jeremy Botter about another former WWE Superstar fighting before SummerSlam: Phil “CM Punk” Brooks. Despite a back injury, Punk has promised to make his long-awaited UFC debut this year, and it looks like that’ll be happening at UFC 202 in August.
https://twitter.com/jeremybotter/status/739680909952094212
Yeah, be careful, don’t get yourself Ariel Helwani’d.
The most interesting part of the news is that with Brock’s UFC appearance, UFC will be actively promoting WWE. UFC 202 takes place on August 20, the night before SummerSlam. If WWE’s effectively sponsoring some aspect of that show due to the cross-promotion, we could have CM Punk’s UFC debut brought to us by WWE.
Let’s hope both Brock’s return fight and Punk’s debut goes well, so we can talk Dana White into dropping the weight classes for a night and running a Punk vs. Brock shootfight the night before Survivor Series.
