During an interview with Lara O’Reilly of Business Insider Stephanie McMahon gave a rare glimpse into the WWE front office’s thoughts of Brock Lesnar’s upcoming UFC 200 fight.
In Brock Lesnar’s case it was really a special case that we are allowing him to do this fight [against Mark Hunt on July 9]. But like you said it’s not really a cross-promotional opportunity, but we are allowing him to participate in that fight.
We are not supporting the fight necessarily but, again, it’s not a competitor to us and the more that our superstars, that’s how we refer to our talent, the more they do outside of WWE, the more awareness it generates and the broader the audience can be that is then brought back into our properties. So we recognize the value of that.
Brock is the first WWE superstar that allowed to compete in a competitive sport while under contract but it’s really not much different than them allowing talent to film action movies under contract.
Lesnar’s out-of-ring conquest are more dangerous than a few stunts and memorising lines but the benefits are just as big as staring in summer blockbusters.
It’s very possible that Brock goes back for this singular fight but a dominating win over Hunt will have Brock back at the negotiating table with both the UFC and WWE.
