Author: Nathan McCarter

Brock Lesnar’s return was exactly what UFC 200 needed. Even more so than the UFC could have ever imagined thanks to the fight week drama surrounding Jon Jones, per Brett Okamoto of ESPN.com.

And his return was everything fans could have wanted.

Lesnar fought a top-tier opponent in Mark Hunt, showed he could take a punch, looked like the Lesnar of old and won the fight. It was such an impressive performance that the thought of Lesnar returning to the title picture immediately flooded the minds of fans and pundits alike.

Those notions came to a screeching halt thanks to a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation from a June 28 out-of-competition sample that the UFC announced on Friday evening.

Now the UFC, USADA and the WWE are going to have to deal with what comes next, both in relation to Lesnar himself and the perception from the general public.

Bleacher Report’s Nathan McCarter and Steven Rondina tackle what Lesnar’s positive test means for the three companies now having to deal with the fallout. Where does this leave them, and how does it change the perception surrounding the organizations?

    

Nathan McCarter: I think it’s only fair to kick this off by focusing on the UFC. Although USADA handles the testing, the UFC will take the brunt of the public backlash—if there is any.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell was quick to tweet that it “doesn’t get much worse” for the leader of MMA after the news broke.

I don’t deny that there will be some negative feelings toward the UFC following this, but I can’t see this being anything more than a minor public relations issue for the company. Lesnar was never guaranteed to return to the company, and UFC 200 is now in the past. They got what they wanted out of the situation.

Does the UFC suffer anything other than a minor annoyance that will pass quickly, or am I missing a bigger picture?

    

Steven Rondina: Honestly, Lesnar failing the drug test is largely inconsequential at this point for the UFC. As our colleague, Mike Chiappetta, said Friday night, the money’s already in the bank.

The UFC got what it needed out of Lesnar. He drew a few hundred thousand much-needed eyeballs to UFC 200 and effectively turned the discussion on the card around from who wasn’t appearing, to who was. Unless Lesnar was, indeed, going to make his MMA return more than a one-time thing, the UFC gets out of this scot free.

Rovell is right to a degree, of course. This shines a light onto the insincere nature of the UFC’s drug-testing policy, which allowed the promotion to give Lesnar a pass while using USADA as a weapon against an insubordinate Conor McGregor…but really, it’s tough to nitpick all that much when the biggest story coming out of UFC 200 is the Jon Jones debacle.

    

McCarter: Speaking of USADA, I think it’s fair to say they are a winner out of all of this mess.

If anyone had any doubt about the incoming testing they would provide I think that can be put to rest. USADA have done exactly what they do, but now the MMA world is forced to recognize their presence. The testing has caught numerous notable names (list of current USADA sanctions) and impacted the biggest pay-per-view of the year with Jones’ removal.

Having the testing come in after the event will likely draw some eyeballs, but there is only so much they can do in this instance. Testing takes time, and results coming in post-event is not abnormal. We see it time and again in other sports, but it is an unfortunate side effect in combat sports.

       

Rondina: USADA definitely comes out of UFC 200 looking like a legitimate force in MMA. It’s worth remembering that three months after the initial announcement of the partnership that USADA was on the bad end of a damning report from SBNation.com, which raised serious questions about the organization’s credibility and willingness to work against the financial interests of whoever cut them checks.

While doubts about USADA’s legitimacy lingered for a good, long while, getting Jones pulled off UFC 200 and following it up with popping Lesnar earns them more than enough street cred for the foreseeable future.

What about Brock, though? Fan (and fighter) speculation about Lesnar’s competitive cleanliness ran rampant before the fight, and the immediate reaction on Twitter amounted to a facetious “wow, what a shock.” Does this hurt him going forward?

     

McCarter: In the world of professional wrestling? No.

This result, if it stands, will end his MMA career for good and put him strictly in the camp of entertainer. The test won’t have any impact on his character, but it brings up an interesting point that it will be the WWE who has to handle the load of what comes next.

How they handle Lesnar’s potential violation through USADA will be fascinating to watch considering how they have handled their own wellness policies. They suspended Roman Reigns, one of their biggest stars for the brand, for 30 days due to his first violation. They have a precedent of suspending their biggest stars.

More importantly, they had a precedent of using outside testing results as it concerns their wellness policies. Kip Sopp, better known as Billy Gunn, was fired after testing positive for elevated testosterone levels at a powerlifting competition in November of 2015, per the Wrestling Observer (h/t WrestlingInc.com). He was a coach at their developmental facilities in Orlando. No longer an active member of the roster.

The WWE will have increased scrutiny about how they handle Lesnar given how they have handled their own policies. Of course, this may all depend on what, exactly, Lesnar’s positive test was for prior to UFC 200.

    

Rondina: It is indeed worth noting that Lesnar’s case isn’t closed yet. There’s the chance (albeit a slim one) that his B-sample comes back clean, it’s possible he tests positive for one of the many banned substances that aren’t actually related to steroids or steroid cycles, and he can always play the “tainted supplement” card, which has a precedent of a six-month suspension.

The devil, as Brock says, is in the details with this one and those details will be important in what happens to Lesnar in the Octagon.

When it comes to Lesnar in the squared circle, however, it seems like WWE is content in simply pretending this whole thing never happened. They acknowledged the violation on WWE.com and stated the following, “Brock Lesnar has not performed for WWE since WrestleMania and is not scheduled to return until Sunday, Aug. 21.”

The fact that their immediate reaction to the news was to assure fans that Lesnar’s match with Randy Orton at SummerSlam is still on is pretty telling. And heck, even if they do go ahead and punish him, as we saw with Reigns, he’s only looking at a one-month ban, which would conveniently end right before SummerSlam!

The WWE gets a bit of egg on its face, given how two of their top stars have been flagged inside a month, but that storm will pass before long.

All in all, nobody really takes much of a hit from this. Lesnar may or may not be fined (but most likely not much, relative to his overall payout) and his win may or may not be overturned (which he doesn’t care about). The UFC and USADA look tougher than ever on drug testing. And the WWE will have Lesnar back in time for their next big show.

Everyone’s a winner! Well, except for Mark Hunt.

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