Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez opened up about his time with the WWE.
Velasquez spoke with Ariel Helwani on the latest edition of The MMA Hour and reflected on his time with the company from October 2019 to April 2020. He did compete in a pay-per-view match at WWE’s annual event in Saudi Arabia called Crown Jewel back in Halloween 2019 against former rival and fellow UFC heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar, for the WWE championship. Velasquez said the following about being appreciative of the experience he got while working for Vince McMahon but wished they gave him and Lesnar more time to work together.
“I think it was meant for me to go there,” Velasquez said (h/t MMA Fighting). “I’m glad I got the experience of knowing what it’s all about, knowing how the company works, how the guys work, everything. It was a great learning experience. I learned a lot from it, and all I can do is take that and make it better the next time if I do get another chance, or just know what that is and appreciate my time in doing that. I think they wanted me to stay in that MMA zone. They wanted me to have that rivalry with Brock, but they really weren’t willing to put the time in to have us work together to really do that. They wanted us to do that, and well, you know how that is. It is what it is, man. That was me just going into it and really just trying to figure out what it was. It was all thrown at me at once, a new organization and I was there for whatever anybody needed, as far as to have me build, or whatever they wanted me to build into. I’m sorry to everyone that got let down. That does hurt me as well because I expect a lot out of myself. I expect more for myself.”
He continued on to talk about what his working relationship was like with Lesnar while in WWE, and how his first-round TKO victory over Lesnar back at UFC 121 in October 2010 added some friction during their interactions, but ultimately they didn’t work much together.
“There’s always going to be friction with that,” Velasquez said. “So yeah, there was, but working together. We didn’t work much, but talking to him just for that little bit, I just know where he comes from, just from that little time spent, and I mean very little. I know what he’s about, and I respect him for that. What you see out there when he performs, all that sh*t, he lives it, he breathes it. That’s him. That persona that you see, that’s him out there. That’s his true self. Close quarters, he’s obviously more human, but that’s him, and I saw that.”
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