Would having Brock Lesnar signed to the active roster and preparing to meet UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier later this summer been a major feather in the hat of Dana White and company?
Of course.
Will the promotion continue on without the former champion and WWE superstar there to help?
Without a shadow of a doubt.
Lesnar’s decision to not return to the Octagon hits the UFC hard, especially at a time when Conor McGregor is battling legal trouble, Georges St-Pierre is retired and Ronda Rousey is as far away from the sport as she’s ever been.
But the UFC can still put together some big-time fights and big-time events, they just need to go back to what they used to do so well: build stars.
For Cormier, the move hurts him the most. A huge payday awaited the champion and some marquee billing on the national scale for a bout with Lesnar. That’s what Brock Lesnar does. He draws in eyes, as evident by his 7.5 million pay-per-view buys over eight cards in which he was either in the main event or the co-main event.
Lesnar five times went over a million buys, but of course each event also had other key fights taking place.
In a nutshell, that is where the UFC has struggled in recent months and years. They just haven’t been able to really give the fans that “can’t-miss” event. Saturday’s UFC 237 card isn’t half-bad of an effort with Rose Namajunas defending her title and former champions Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo in action.
But none of the three have really hit it out of the park lately with the masses. Namajunas made more waves for her part in the McGregor melee, while Silva and Aldo have had trouble getting in the win column.
So, while Lesnar might have been a shot-in-the-arm for a one-off fight with Lesnar, the UFC can really help itself by focusing on building stars into top draws and connecting with the fight fans.
Damn, It’s True is a weekly column posted on The Mix at FightLine by MMA reporter Dana Becker. He may be reached on Twitter @DanaBecker.
Here’s a link back to the first column regarding Conor McGregor and his inabilities to run his own Twitter account anymore and the second column on Bellator MMA taking too many extended breaks.