WWE News: Brock Lesnar responds to Jon Jones' challenge
What’s the story?
UFC looks to be edging ever-closer to its latest potential super-fight after Brock Lesnar responded to Jon Jones post-fight call out from UFC 214. Addressing Jones via AP News, Lesnar gave a simple warning to be “careful what you wish for, young man.”
In case you didn’t know…
In a recent Facebook Live session, Jones sowed the seeds for a possible Lesnar fight by noting that he’d love to mix it up with the WWE Universal Champion and that he thinks a potential match-up would be a massive draw.
Lesnar then responded by declaring he’d fight Jones “anywhere, anytime” before Jones went one better by calling out Lesnar directly at UFC 214 this past weekend. Long story short; the pot’s well and truly being stirred.
The heart of the matter
As appealing as this Jones vs. fight Lesnar would be, there are a number of notable stumbling blocks that first need to be navigated. For one, Jones himself has said he's some 40 pounds lighter than Lesnar, and so he would obviously need to bulk up to get to the heavyweight division.
Plus, Lesnar’s not only retired from UFC, but also suspended after failing a drug test, and then there’s the small matter of his WWE contract to factor in.
Still, the counterargument is that none of those issues are impossible to overcome, and the fact that they’re very much going public with this back-and-forth suggests a showdown may well be on the cards.
What's next?
First up, Lesnar has to defend his WWE Universal Championship at SummerSlam but beyond that, he still has plenty of work to do to be ready—and eligible—for a UFC return. He’d have to re-enter the USADA testing pool, which he was very much out of as recently as mid-July. And even if he re-entered that program, he’d still have to serve out the remainder of his ongoing suspension.
All things considered, that means December is the very earliest at which he’d be able to square off with Jones, but realistically it could end up being even later than that—if it even happens at all, that is.
Author’s take
It’s perhaps not surprising that we’re entertaining the idea of this possible super-fight. After being taken over by WME-IMG last year, UFC needs to promote as many big fights as possible to help alleviate the reported debt that takeover entailed.
On the other side of the equation, though, you’ve got to question whether this makes sense for WWE. A loss to Jones, which at this point seems the more likely outcome, would risk killing that Lesnar aura that the company has invested so much time in. Based on that kind of logic, we could end up seeing Lesnar drop that Universal title rather sooner than anticipated.