Things went full WWE on Saturday night at UFC 226 after Daniel Cormier knocked out Stipe Miocic to become the second fighter in UFC history to hold two belts at once. It was a pretty amazing moment, but Cormier didn’t spend much time soaking it up. Instead, he launched straight into a call out of Brock Lesnar, who was sitting cageside watching the fight. Brock entered the Octagon, gave Cormier a shove, and then cut a better promo than we’ve seen in years setting up a fight between the two.
Never mind your concerns about mixed martial arts getting a bit too silly and manufactured. This is a fight that’s going down … if Brock Lesnar can get through a six-month testing period mandated by USADA. The reason he’s being forced to do this is twofold: First, he failed a drug test leading up to his last MMA fight at UFC 200 and still has six months to serve after dipping out of the USADA testing pool to return to WWE. And second, USADA now forces all fighters returning to the UFC to undergo six months of testing before they can compete — a no-exceptions rule made specifically after Lesnar was allowed to fight at UFC 200 on a month’s notice.
Fortunately for Lesnar, the two six-month periods can be served concurrently. In a sane world, that would make Lesnar eligible to fight again near the start of January 2019. But things involving Lesnar and the UFC are rarely that simple, and there’s a chance the two parties and USADA have been hiding Lesnar’s return to the testing pool so they can surprise us with a closer return date.
There’s been rumors of Lesnar secretly entering the testing pool since he had that ultimately pointless back-and-forth with Jon Jones in July of 2017. But there’s a lot more smoke recently, with several reputable MMA journalists like Jeremy Botter putting their name to the story.
https://twitter.com/jeremybotter/status/1015809467437518850
https://twitter.com/jeremybotter/status/1015806269557542912
https://twitter.com/jeremybotter/status/1015831436509831171
Cormier fighting Lesnar and then Jones matches up with a timeline he shared at the UFC 226 post-fight press conference, saying he could fight in November and then March. Lesnar in November, followed by Jones in March? Sounds pretty all right to us.
There’s also the interesting case of “Contender 1,” a nameless fighter included on USADA’s drug testing database as being tested twice. Reporters were told this was a new UFC fighter signed from an upcoming episode of Dana White’s Lookin’ for a Fight, which is probably true. But from that listing came this interesting confirmation from MMA Weekly’s Damon Martin that USADA isn’t against keeping a fighter’s involvement in the testing pool a secret.
I'm assuming if Lesnar re-entered the testing pool that his name would show up on the reports like everybody else but that's the first time they've ever said they couldn't confirm that information about a fighter retiring or coming out of retirement
— Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) June 16, 2018
So on one hand, we’re kind of hoping Lesnar is back in the testing pool because it sets up a great end to 2018 and start of 2019 as far as fights go. But on the other, how can you not feel a little disappointed in USADA if they play along with this cloak and dagger stuff when it comes to big money superstars? Isn’t the goal of USADA complete transparency and an equal playing field? Don’t things start to get blurry when certain fighters start getting special treatment?
https://twitter.com/iainkidd/status/1015827220449853441
White was also impressively vague when discussing Lesnar’s return to the testing pool, saying “They started the process last week. I don’t know where they are in the process but he’s going to pop up on the board here soon, Monday or Tuesday, I don’t know where in the process he is.”
White also said he’s not talking to Conor McGregor at all about his next fight, so take all of this with a nice big grain of salt.
So when you’re complaining about the WWE and UFC starting to blur together, it’s not just the shoving and the promos and the fake rivalries. There may be a growing amount of kayfabe surrounding important stuff like drug testing and upcoming fight plans. We should learn soon enough whether Cormier vs. Lesnar goes down in 2018 or 2019, and then you’ll know as well whether the UFC really has gone full pro wrestling.
