Brock Lesnar Making UFC Return, Conor McGregor To Fight Again: Dana White

Former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar (5-3-1) will be making a return to the UFC, according to its President Dana White.

Lesnar was the former cash-cow for the Las Vegas promotion during his first stint from 2008 to 2011 as he became the UFC heavyweight champion in just his fourth professional fight.

After retiring due to a case of diverticulitis before making his return to the WWE, Lesnar returned to the octagon in a one-off fight against Mark Hunt at UFC 200 in July 2016 in an event that went on to make 1,009,000 pay-per-view buys.

The 40-year-old had a winning return as he defeated the New Zealander via unanimous decision, however, it was overturned after Lesnar tested positive for two banned substances resulting in a one-year suspension before he retired once again.

Currently the WWE Universal champion, Lesnar is expected to drop his title to Roman Reigns when he defends his belt at the company's flagship show at Wrestlemania 34 on April 8 and leave the company soon after with his contract expiring.

Naturally, rumors of a return to the UFC have been floating around and were even heightened after White posted a picture of the two together in February.

When asked Wednesday by light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier on UFC Tonight whether a return was in the works, White confirmed the Minnesota native was coming back though he was not sure of an exact date.

"Yeah, Brock Lesnar’s coming back," White responded after laughing. "I don’t know when, but yes he is."

This was later backed by MMAFighting's Ariel Helwani who tweeted that White is confident of Lesnar's WWE career after this week and the key now is to finalize his return to the UFC.

A reason why a return date is not known at this point is likely because Lesnar would still have to serve six months in the United States Anti-Doping Agency testing pool after his one-year suspension was frozen.

Regardless, his return serves as a big boost to the promotion which struggled since the start of 2017 as Lesnar will provide many exciting big-money match-ups with the likes of current champion Stipe Miocic and exciting heavyweight contender Francis Ngannou.

Meanwhile, White also reiterated that Conor McGregor will be stripped of his lightweight title when UFC 223 takes place this week on April 7 but added the Irishman will return to the octagon this year.

Interim champion Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov were set to face off for the lightweight title only for the former to pull out through injury, with featherweight champion Max Holloway stepping up on six days notice as a replacement.

"There’s no stripping," White said at a press conference to promote UFC 223. "We’re not stripping Tony Ferguson. Tony Ferguson isn’t being stripped. The only person here who is losing a belt is Conor. Conor’s losing the belt, these two [Nurmagomedov and Holloway] are fighting for the belt."

"The interim belt that he [Ferguson] had, those two [Nurmagomedov and Ferguson] were supposed to fight — doesn’t happen. One of these guys will be the champion. Tony is still the No. 1 contender," he said. "Conor is coming back this year 100 percent. He will fight this year. We’ll see how this thing plays out and we’ll go from there."