Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar appeared recently on ESPN’s Face to Face with Hannah Storm, and detailed his post college career in Football, pro wrestling, and mixed martial arts.
“I was on the road and I was injured and I was the champion and I didn’t want to quit,” said Lesnar, as transcribed by Mark Bergmann for BE. “I had a no-quit attitude. Vicodin and vodka were my closest friends and my closest enemies. So I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. I had to get out of the wrestling business back then to save my life. I just wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at the time. I felt like a caged animal. I didn’t want that. I still had a competitive nature inside me. I had a calling to go back and compete again.”
“I didn’t know what it was, but I tried the NFL. I think the NFL was more of a scapegoat, just to get out and say I did it, I tried it. I was on the Viking’s practice squad, I was the last guy cut from the team. They wanted to send me to Europe, they wanted to keep me, but they couldn’t. I needed to brush up, I needed the experience, so they wanted to send me to Europe, and I didn’t wanna go.
“Then the next thing I know, I got a phone call saying, ‘Are you interested in fighting?’ I said absolutely. I gave it a one-fight shot with a company out of Japan and then decided I wanted to be in the UFC. And Dana White wouldn’t take my phone calls.
“I win my first MMA fight, Dana White won’t take my phone calls from my lawyers and manager and so I said fine. Randy Couture was fighting Gabriel Gonzaga for the heavyweight title, so I said buy a ticket and we’ll go to the show. And I bought a ticket, sat in the stands, watched the whole show and at the end of the show, I jumped the guard rail, escaped a few security guards, ran up and tapped Dana White on the shoulder and introduced myself, and that’s where the ball got started rolling.”
Lesnar won his MMA debut, and as detailed, got into the UFC on only his second fight, which he lost via Knee Bar to Frank Mir. He bounced back with a win over Heath Herring, and beat Randy Couture for the UFC heavyweight championship.
Lesnar then defended his title successfully twice, vs. Mir again and Shane Carwin, tying the record for most consecutive UFC heavyweight championship defenses. The he lost his title to Cain Velasquez, lost his next fight to Alistair Overeem, and went back to the WWE. His UFC PPV records were only broken by Conor McGregor.
