Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar is rumored to be cageside for UFC 168 tomorrow evening, possibly to meet with higher-ups in the company about a return in 2014.
Well, if that is the case, UFC President Dana White certainly isn’t showing his hand. MMA Fighting reported on Thursday that White said, “I honestly don’t know” when asked about a potential Lesnar return.
Lesnar retired from mixed martial arts after a devastating TKO loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 in December, a few months removed from his second bout with the digestive disease diverticulitis.
Since then, the former two-time Division I All-American wrestler has been back inside the ring working for the WWE on a part-time basis.
The 36-year-old hulking heavyweight headlined UFC 100, where he defeated Frank Mir with vicious ground-and-pound. The matchup was a rematch of UFC 81, which Mira won with a kneebar.
The July 2009 pay-per-view remains the UFC’s best-selling event of all time, with a whopping 1.6 million buys.
With big names like Georges St-Pierre, Anthony Pettis and Cain Velasquez all expected to miss the majority of 2014, a Lesnar return could be a godsend for the world’s premier MMA organization.
According to the aforementioned report from MMA Fighting, sources close to Lesnar indicated that the competitor once billed as “The Next Big Thing” had little interest in returning to the fight game.
The Minnesota native has signature wins over Mir, Randy Couture and Shane Carwin, as well as lopsided losses to current champ Velasquez and Overeem.
Whether or not Lesnar is actually present at UFC 168, which takes place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, could be very telling about what his future holds in the new year.
John Heinis is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com