UFC President Dana White has entertained the idea of Brock Lesnar returning to the UFC after his WWE contract comes to an end, but Bellator MMA President Scott Coker has made it known that he has his eye on Lesnar as well.
“We’ve had a conversation internally and it’s worth a conversation, but that’s something we’ll pursue maybe later into January,” Coker said during an appearance on The MMA Hour.
Coker doesn’t have PPV revenue with Bellator but that didn’t stop him from giving Tito Ortiz $300k for his last fight. For that formula to continue to work Coker needs star power; Brock Lesnar fits that plan.
“I would say, look, any fighter that’s out there or any star athlete – not star athlete in the sense of a baseball player, but like a Brock Lesnar – that really wants to fight, we’re going to have a conversation with them. Because if they can move the needle, we’re going to want them on Spike TV,” said the Bellator president.
“I think that he’s a big needle mover,” he added. “There have been several years that have passed and I think that he still has the WWE limelight. So, I think that he still has a lot of star power, but to come back and say, ‘Hey, I want to train, I want to commit, I want fight,’ that’s going to be a big commitment on his part. We haven’t had a conversation yet, but we’d like to at some point.”
It’ll be interesting to see if the UFC is willing to go toe-to-toe with Bellator for one of the biggest draws in MMA history.