Nobody can accuse Brock Lesnar of taking the easy way for a paycheck at UFC 200 as his opponent will be Mark Hunt. The announcement was made during an interview on ESPN this morning.
“I feel 1,000 percent,” Lesnar told ESPN’s Hannah Storm. “The only thing I second-guess is my decision is to step away from the Octagon.” Lesnar added that his decision to quit the UFC has haunted him for the past 15 months.
“Why Mark Hunt?” Storm asked. “Why not? It could be anybody, I didn’t care, that’s how simple it is.” Lesnar said he didn’t have a say on who his opponent was going to be but he’s never turned down a fight. “If Dana White called me and he said you have opponent X, Y, and Z…he never gave me those options,” Lesnar said. He added that White said that this is the guy we want you to face. “Great, that’s what I’m gonna do,” Lesnar replied.
When asked how this came up with all the stars aligning for him to come back, Lesnar said that it was big business for both WWE and UFC and everyone is going to win. He said that his paycheck for UFC 200 contain a lot of zeros. Win, lose, or draw the former WWE champion will come out of the Octagon a very, very rich man.
The 42 year old Mark Hunt holds a 12-10-1 MMA record and has two losses in his last five MMA fights. In September 2014 he defeated Roy Nelson with a TKO, and then lost fights in a row – first to Fabricio Werdum at UFC 180 in November 2014 and to Stipe Moicic in May 2015. He returned to his winning ways at UFC 193 in November 2015 against Antonio Silva and his last fight in March 2016 he defeated Lesnar’s arch rival Frank Mir at UFC Fight Night.
You can see a portion of Lesnar’s interview on ESPN below.
