During Saturday night’s UFC on FOX 6 post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White revealed that Brock Lesnar agreed to return to the UFC last year to fight Fedor Emelianenko in a heavyweight megafight that would have taken place at Cowboys Stadium Sadly, Emelianenko’s father passed away and the fight fell apart.
White told the media on Saturday night:
“I told you guys that story before, we were in deep talks with [Fedor] we were that close to signing him. No [we were close to signing him] recently, right before his dad died…we were right there. When I was talking about doing that big Dallas Texas stadium show it was going to be Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor. Remember when I met with him and I said it didn’t get well? It actually did go well. It went well and then Fedor’s dad died, he wanted to fight Fedor….Fedor was done, he said ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with my family.’ We were negotiating for months. And then after his dad died he said, ‘That’s it I’m done,’ or whatever and then Brock said, ‘I’m done too.'”
As for Lesnar’s future, White doesn’t believe he’ll ever fight in the Octagon again.
“From what I understand, he has absolutely, positively made his decision not to fight ever again from what I understand, but I mean, anything’s possible. You know, when the guy says he wants to retire, you’re never going to see me chasing a guy that says he wants to retire. If you want to retire, you should retire.”
“He’s going to do his stint in the WWE and then go away. He’s got a big farm up in Canada. He loves to farm and he loves to be with his family out in the middle of nowhere.”
