Alistair Overeem does not believe Brock Lesnar will return to the UFC
With just a few fights left in his career, Alistair Overeem is looking for the best challenges to close out his legendary career, but he doesn’t believe a former opponent of his will be making his return to the Octagon. After the WWE chose not to renew the contract of former champion Brock Lesnar who is also the former UFC heavyweight champion.
Lesnar had a brief MMA career which saw him earn the gold with a win over Randy Couture at UFC 91, and overall in his career he would go on to grab wins over Couture, Frank Mir, Shane Carwin, and Heath Herring during his run with the UFC. Lesnar would drop the title to Cain Velasquez at UFC 121, and then later be defeated by Alistar Overeem at UFC 141. After his loss to Overeem, Lesnar would return to the WWE up until UFC 200 in 2016 where he had a no-contest ruling in his fight against Mark Hunt after Lesnar failed a drug test.
Following his win this past weekend at UFC Vegas 9 over Augusto Sakai, Overeem joined Jimmy Smith on Sirius XM, and was asked about his thoughts on a potential Lesnar return and “The Reem” does not believe Lesnar will find himself back in the Octagon.
🎥"He's not going to come back." – @Alistairovereem explains to @jimmysmithmma why he believes we will not be seeing Brock Lesnar return to the UFC 🛑 pic.twitter.com/a978w8v3eP
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) September 8, 2020
“He’s not going to come back. Let’s be honest, his last comeback was a debacle, so that’s number one. Number two, he’s still got to deal with the fallout of that, he still has to deal with the commission and Nevada, so I just do not see it happening. On top of that, he’s 43 or 44 years old, his recovery will definitely be down. I just do not see him coming back to the UFC, it’s not realistic, and I don’t even understand why we’re talking about it.”
Overeem does admit he’s been wrong about his predictions on Lesnar in the past, but with all the given circumstances, he doesn’t see a return to the UFC as a possibility, but did mention another promotion that could make sense.
“I do have to say, I predicted wrong on him [Lesnar] coming back the last time, 2016 vs Mark Hunt. But look what happened, they [UFC] kind of circumvented the USADA testing pool and it still was a debacle. I just don’t think it’s realistic to comeback to the UFC, for him to go to Bellator, I see that happening a little more rapidly, but not to UFC.”
While Alistar Overeem does not foresee Lesnar making a return to the UFC, a move to Bellator definitely raises some eyebrows, including that of Bellator President, Scott Coker.
