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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar is expected to make a July return to the Octagon, according to comments from UFC President Dana White to reporters following the UFC 109 press conference on Thursday.
"He could fight probably in July (in Vegas), end of June or July" said White. "We gotta find out what’s gonna happen with the next two fights, the heavyweight fights, and then we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do. This fight (Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira) will happen in Australia first, then we’ll do the Newark fight (Frank Mir vs. Shane Carwin), and if those guys come out of that fight healthy, we’ll do that fight."
Lesnar's return will cap off what has been a seemingly miraculous recovery from diverticulosis by the Champ, a condition that nearly claimed his fighting career. Lesnar will face off against the winner of the Mir-Carwin bout in March unless the winner is unable to return that quickly. If that is the case he will face the winner of this month's Velasquez vs. Nogueira winner.
In addition to his Octagon return, Lesnar will grace the cover of the UFC's Undisputed 2010 video game on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The second iteration of the next generation video game franchise will be released on May 25th.
Penick's Analysis: Well, that means Lesnar won't be the headliner for the first Boston card, but his July return does mean he may still get in two fights this year after some early prognostications were saying he may not even fight in 2010. It's great to see that his recovery will allow him to make this return, but the question will become whether the illness battle has set him back or if his recovery brings him back stronger than ever. It's going to be a massive money making fight no matter which of the four possible opponents he ends up facing. The video game cover is also pretty cool, and an improvement over last year's game. The Forrest Griffin cover worked great, but this one just pops a bit better. Last year's game was a smash success and this year's will hopefully improve upon the fun but flawed experience that the 2009 version brought. Going up against the EA Sports version of an MMA game may bring out more from the developer's for this version as well, so it will be great to see what each game brings to the table.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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