Brock Lesnar "begged" UFC president Dana White for a favor
UFC President Dana White revealed after last night’s UFC Fight Night 40 event in Cincinnati that Brock Lesnar called him to try to convince his friend Pat Barry from fighting again. Barry had suffered seven losses in the UFC, four of which were via knockout or TKO. He was granted his release from the organization to return to kickboxing, and suffered a knockout loss to Zack Mwekassa at the Glory 16 kickboxing show earlier this month.
“Brock Lesnar called me and begged me to make (Pat Barry) retire,” Dana said during last night’s media scrum (props to MMA Weekly for the transcription). “He said, ‘I don’t consider too many people my friend, and I consider Pat Barry a friend. Dana, you got to get this guy to retire.’
“I said, ‘Listen, he’s a grown man Brock. What am I gonna do?’ It’s different with guys like Forrest (Griffin) and Chuck (Liddell), guys that I’ve had relationships with for a long time. Guys who have made a lot of money. That’s the difference. You look at guys like Forrest. Forrest and Chuck are multimillionaires. It’s easy to make them quit. It’s a lot tougher to make a guy quit that has to make a living. I don’t want to hurt Pat Barry or throw a monkey wrench in his life or anything, but at the end of the day, the state athletic commission is gonna need to step in and help a guy like Pat Barry retire? or people that care about him.”
Barry was scheduled to face MMA legend Mirko Cro Cop at Glory 17 in June, however he withdrew from the fight for undisclosed reasons.