Dana White regrets not booking Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko

UFC president Dana White says that his biggest matchmaking regret is never booking a heavyweight fight between Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko.

Lesnar and Emelianenko were arguably the two biggest superstars in the sport at the beginning of the 2010s. At the time, Lesnar was the UFC heavyweight champion, while Emelianenko had dominated the competition in PRIDE and was a new member of the Strikeforce roster.

For whatever reason, a fight between the two behemoths never materialized. In a new interview with UFC.com, White says that’s his biggest regret among fights that never came to be.

“The only fight that I wanted to make that was never made was Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko. We were going to do it at Texas Stadium. But I couldn’t get a deal done with Fedor, so it never happened,” White said.

Had Lesnar vs. Emelianenko been booked, it would have been arguably the biggest fight in MMA history between two legends of the sport. But the UFC was never able to get Emelianenko signed, and the fight with Lesnar never came to be.

It’s interesting that White picked Lesnar vs. Emelianenko over other fights that never materialized such as Georges St. Pierre vs. Anderson Silva, Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano, and Randy Couture vs. Emelianenko. Clearly, the UFC big boss thought that he could have done a blockbuster pay-per-view even with Emelianenko and Lesnar. Alas, it was not meant to be.

With Lesnar in his 40s now and retired from MMA and with Emelianenko in Bellator on his retirement tour, the chances of a possible matchup between these two legends are very slim in the year 2020. Then again, we have seen crazy things happen in MMA, so never say never. If White had it his way, this would have been a fight we would have seen.

Who would have won a hypothetical fight between Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 1/2/2020.