What if Daniel Cormier goes to WWE?

Daniel Cormier and Brock Lesnar have made headlines together. It started with Cormier storming the cage at UFC 226 and shoving Cormier after his fight. Word came out Lesnar was back in the USADA testing pool and eyeing a return to the Octagon in 2019, and it became clear quickly enough that UFC was eyeing a big title fight between the Beast Incarnate and one of their top stars of recent times.

It wasn’t a huge surprise when Lesnar dropped his Universal Championship to Roman Reigns at SummerSlam, presumably to focus on MMA for the months ahead. WWE threw in a curveball, though, when Lesnar resurfaced on their landscape sooner than anyone expected at Hell in a Cell.

The conventional wisdom was that WWE was taking advantage of the big money afforded by their deal with Saudi Arabia to bring back Lesnar as a special attraction for Crown Jewel. However, when Reigns had to step away to battle leukemia, Lesnar filled the void as WWE seemed to hit the reset button on his part-time championship run.

Lesnar currently reigns as Universal Champion and has a big fight awaiting him in UFC with Cormier. But what if this fight doesn’t come to UFC—or at least doesn’t go there exclusively? What if Cormier comes to WWE? This article takes a look at the potential results.

---

5. A big push

Daniel Cormier wouldn't come to WWE just to lose right out of the chute

For Daniel Cormier, one of the most legitimate fighters in the world, to crossover to WWE now, in the prime of his mixed martial arts career, would have to come with certain expectations and assurances.

First among them, there’s little chance Cormier or UFC would be interested in working out a deal unless Cormier were to be booked as a top level star. On top of that, WWE has a pretty good track record when it comes to special attractions like Lesnar and Ronda Rousey, making sure their mystique carries over to the WWE audience.

To be fair, it’s hard to imagine Cormier signing on full time, but WWE would nonetheless want to book him at or around the main event for his limited dates, which may include dominating a few WWE regulars in his first appearances. In the end, though, there’s only one obvious destination for a Cormier run in WWE, and that is a match with his key rival, Brock Lesnar.

4. A match with Brock Lesnar

Cormier vs. Lesnar may not be exclusive to the Octagon.

A match with Brock Lesnar would be inevitable for Daniel Cormier if he were to set foot in the WWE Universe. It’s just crazy enough of an idea to work, too, as UFC has shown an increasing willingness to embrace to outlandish like Lesnar confronting Cormier at UFC 226, or like getting behind Conor McGregor’s boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.

Lesnar vs. Cormier already comes across as a draw in UFC, and in all likelihood will happen in a real fight context before a pro wrestling match, unless Lesnar flunks a drug test or backs out of his MMA return altogether. Still, there are roads to this pairing in WWE. If Lesnar were to win the UFC fight, WWE could tell a convincing story of Cormier coming to The Beast’s “house” to get his revenge in a WWE ring. Alternatively, in the more likely case that Cormier does beat Lesnar in the Octagon, it could be that Lesnar challenges him to come into WWE to fight on his terms, too.

3. A worked MMA-style match

It's rare, but not impossible, to find a worked MMA-style bout that succeeds.

A worked MMA-style match is difficult to pull off effectively, if only because today’s fight fans are so familiar with what an MMA fight is supposed to look like, and thus more attuned than ever to pulled punches or unrealistic fighting styles.

It’s not impossible to weave the styles together, though. Perhaps the best example would be Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe from Impact Wrestling’s 2008 Lockdown event, where the two started out with a very MMA influenced approach before slowly working their way into a more traditional pro wrestling match.

If anyone is equipped to blend the styles today, it would be Lesnar, and given Cormier’s real-life pedigree and lack of conventional sports entertainment training, he may be an ideal dance partner to execute the style with The Beast Incarnate.

The question remains as to who would win—if WWE could justify jobbing out Lesnar as one of its most credible stars, but by the same token if Cormier would sign on to lose in this context.

2. More crossover from UFC

More stars may crossover from UFC to WWE.

Recent years have seen more and more crossover between UFC and WWE. To be fair, that’s not all by design, as WWE would probably just as soon not have seen Brock Lesnar ever return to the Octagon after he came back to WWE in 2012, not to mention that CM Punk’s turn to MMA has failed to impress.

Still, WWE has been shrewd in capitalizing on fighters who crossed over to their domain. Lesnar has had a more serious edge and mystique since coming back from his successes in the world of MMA. Moreover, it was the star power Ronda Rousey generated in UFC that has set her up to take flight as the top female star for WWE today.

Daniel Cormier is a star in his own right, but doesn’t have the crossover appeal of a Lesnar or Rousey. If he were to go to WWE, it may well signal the floodgates opening of more stars coming over from MMA, or more crossover between the two brands.

1. A WWE vs. UFC event

Now more than ever, a WWE vs. UFC event seems possible. Cormier in WWE would inch us closer.

In years past, it would have been a pipe dream to imagine UFC and WWE co-promoting an event. Indeed, in the early days of MMA growing popular in the US, word was that the UFC had openly threatened WWE and its stars if they ever tried to emulate an MMA fight again.

Times have changed, though. The mainstream attention UFC has drawn has been instrumental in shifting WWE’s aesthetic to at times more realistic, or alternatively more spot-heavy to offer an alternative to MMA. On the flip side, UFC has embraced more showmanship like Brock Lesnar getting in Daniel Cormier’s face at UFC 226, besides the wild brawling that closed out UFC 229 and prompted some skeptics to suggest Dana White was walking the work-shoot line.

It’s no longer entirely unrealistic to imagine a show that included both WWE matches and UFC fights. Perhaps there could even a true crossover event between the two sides, most likely contested in a pro wrestling style on the premise that it would be easier to teach fighters to work functionally than to train a quorum of wrestlers how to fight competitively. It’s still a bit of a longshot, but Cormier coming over would invite such a concept to inch closer to a reality.