There was a time when interest in UFC 200 was vanishing. A card that was supposed to be headlined by Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz in a rematch would’ve been the easiest sell in the world, but that fight evaporated somewhere over Iceland. Dana White had to do something big to get the spotlight back on this event.

If you need a big money attraction to draw attention to whatever your organization is doing, then Brock Lesnar is the guy you call. Vince McMahon knows it. Dana White knows it. The Minnesota Vikings knew it too. Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Tim Cook called Brock to punch Windows Vista in its face onstage at the Apple WWDC.

Mainstream attention had already been spiking in a way that it wouldn’t have unless McGregor and Diaz were featured on the card. Lesnar has that type of effect on people, and we know this because his career has been a bizarre and fascinating story of a warrior vagabond. He’s led a life that seems unbelievable because it is.

Lesnar climbed to the top of the WWE by pinning The Rock for his first title reign, becoming the youngest champion in the company’s history at the time. Poised to be (quite literally) “The Next Big Thing”, Lesnar left millions of WWE dollars on the table to go try out for the NFL. Everyone thought of it as a joke, but how often do you hear about guys walking on to an NFL team to play defensive lineman? It doesn’t happen. That’s how much of a freak this guy is.