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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
After Brock Lesnar was defeated by Cain Velasquez on Saturday night at UFC 121 in Anaheim, rumors and reports began making the rounds that Lesnar had been offered a Wrestlemania match with The Undertaker in 2011. The reports were lent some credence by a bizarre exchange between the two after the fight, caught on camera during a video interview that The Undertaker, real name Mark Calaway, was involved in with MMAFighting.com's Ariel Helwani.
As Lesnar walked past them following his defeat, Taker motioned toward him and said "you wanna do it?" The two then exchanged words and Taker stated to Helwani that there was a personal issue between him and Lesnar. After that, it was reported by Dave Meltzer at WrestlingObserver.com that Lesnar had been offered the Wrestlemania bout.
But even if Lesnar seriously entertained the idea of taking that match, which there is no evidence to suggest that he had, he cannot and will not be allowed to participate in it by the UFC.
In a report at TMZ.com, UFC President Dana White made it clear that it would not happen.
"Brock Lesnar is still under contract with the UFC," White told TMZ. "He is not going to wrestle in the WWE. He cannot wrestle, box, or fight anywhere else."
Penick's Analysis: Even if the WWE legitimately did make this offer, I don't think there's a chance that Lesnar would have taken them up on it even if he had the right to. He's simply done with that part of his life, and he's said so in the past. He's tried to distance himself from that world, and a lot of the hatred that he's received from MMA fans has been because of his past in the WWE. It just made no sense for him to do it, and there were plenty of reasons for him not to, so I don't think it was ever more than something being stirred up to try to piggyback off what was going on Saturday. It was completely coincidental that their brief confrontation was caught on camera, and Taker simply picked a terrible time to say anything to Lesnar, let alone try to run some type of angle. But I'm glad to hear White completely shut it down, because there's no point for the speculation to be allowed to linger on if there's not a chance of it happening anyway.
[Brock Lesnar art by Travis Beaven (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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