The potential superfight between Brock Lesnar and UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has been in a holding pattern since UFC 226, when the two stars finally met face-to-face inside the Octagon.
Lesnar has since re-entered the USADA drug testing pool, meaning he could be eligible to return to the UFC any day now. Over the last eight months, though, no real progress has been made public when it comes to setting up a showdown between the two. While Cormier continues to recover from a lingering back injury, UFC president Dana White claimed he has an unnamed opponent already lined up for the champ when he finally gets healthy.
So when the title picture became a topic of conversation Saturday night after Junior dos Santos TKO’d Derrick Lewis, the heavyweight had no problem laying out exactly why the WWE star doesn’t deserve a shot at UFC gold.
“For sure not Brock Lesnar,” dos Santos said during the post-fight press conference, per Wrestling Inc. “He’s not even part of the sport right now. He cannot come back and fight for the title. It doesn’t make sense.”
Dos Santos has a point: Lesnar hasn’t fought since July 2016, when a failed drug test overturned his win over Mark Hunt to a no contest. Before that bout, Lesnar lost consecutive fights to Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem.
Currently the No. 1 ranked heavyweight, Stipe Miocic, still hasn’t fought since dropping the title to Cormier as he holds out hope for an eventual rematch. Francis Ngannou can also stake his claim for a title shot after ruining Velasquez’s return to the UFC with a first-round knockout in mid-February.
Cormier originally planned to retire around his 40th birthday at the end of March, but has since pushed back stepping away from the UFC until he’s able to fight once more, likely this spring or summer.
