Death Clutch (3 page)

SENIOR YEAR: ONE LAST CHANCE TO GO OUT ON TOP

F
rom the day I walked off the mat at the 1999 NCAA finals, all I could think about was becoming the 2000 NCAA Heavyweight Champion. I went to class, because I had to stay eligible to wrestle. But aside from that, every waking thought was on the big prize. If I ate something, it was to build me up so I could win the title. If I lifted a weight, it was with that ultimate goal in mind. If I stepped on the mat in practice, it was to win, and to win convincingly, regardless of the drill. Winning the Heavyweight title wasn't the biggest thing on my mind—it was all I ever thought about.

When I was throwing 280-pound heavyweights around the mat, the U of M wrestling program was getting some big publicity, and it was all centered around me. Here I was: tall, blond, and chiseled. I was tossing opponents like no one had ever seen before at the college level. The media ate it up, and we were packing the house for every match.

People were coming to see me wrestle, and I enjoyed putting on a show for the fans. However, I really could have lived without the media attention. I actually began to hate it.

I found out very quickly that I could manipulate a lot of people and create a lot of interest in upcoming matches based solely on the words that came out of my mouth. But it wasn't an act, it was just me. I was raised to speak my mind, and I did.

If you look back, you can find a
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
story from 1999 that reported a comment I made about what I was going to do to Wes Hand, the Iowa Hawkeye heavyweight, and how the U of M was going to steamroll over Iowa. Just because I made that comment, we drew a sellout crowd. The university had never seen this kind of press for the wrestling team. Even back then, people came to see Brock Lesnar.

Instead of just reporting about my wrestling career and maybe even how I might approach my next match, the media got to be really invasive. They asked too damn many questions.

One day, I decided I had enough. I told J I wasn't going to cooperate with the press anymore. I just wanted to wrestle. Except when I was out there competing, I wanted the press to leave me the hell alone. But instead of getting off my back, the media wanted to talk to me even more.

To this day, the media coverage is the one part of fame that I really don't enjoy. I love being in front of the audience, but I've always hated the “public relations” bullshit.

I try to limit media access and get some personal space, but when I do, it only makes them hungrier. They are like animals. If you feed them once, they always come back for another bite. And another. And another.

That's why I learned very early on not to give them the whole meal at once. They will always come back, and I have to save something to feed them when they do.

I went to summer school before my senior year at the university, but I also coached at J Robinson's wrestling camps to make a few bucks. I was about to start my senior year when word came down that there were now only ten scholarships available for wrestling. Ten scholarships meant that if the program wanted to add more wrestlers, it would have to divide full scholarships into partials, or that some wrestlers would be on their own. There just weren't enough scholarships to go around.

You guessed it. Next thing I know, I'm being told the university is cutting what little of a scholarship I had so they can give it to another guy. I was really pissed. I'm bringing in fans and dollars to the program, but after four years of working my ass off, I am stuck with a pile of student loans. That pissed me off almost as much as losing to Neal my junior year. The whole situation still chaps my ass.

I was on my own again. This time, though, I was a senior, and I knew it was my last chance.

I just said, “Screw it,” and went undefeated until a week before the Big Ten tournament at the end of the season.

It was me against Wes Hand from the University of Iowa. Wes and I had wrestled a handful of times in my junior year, and he had me figured out. I shot in on him, and he lateral-dropped me right to my back. Fifteen seconds into the match I was down 5–0. In Division I wrestling, that means you're hosed.

I wasn't going down that way . . . not to him, not to anyone . . . I kept saying to myself, “You're Brock Lesnar, no one does this to you  . . .” and I battled my way back. But he gets his dancing shoes on and just tries to stay away from me with his five-point lead. I ended up coming back and scoring four straight points, but there just wasn't enough time, and Wes Hand beat me 5–4.

I don't have to tell you that I was humiliated—again. I wasn't five years old anymore, but my mom still chewed me out. She was big on tough love, and I deserved the ass chewing.

When we went to Outback Steakhouse that night, I couldn't even finish my steak. I was sickened by the loss. I didn't have any excuse for losing. I thought to myself, “No one should be able to beat me. I am better than that. I am better than Wes Hand.”

When I look back, though, that loss was the best thing that could have happened to me. It made me work harder than ever before, and it made me focus on the Big Ten tourney, which was the last important match before the NCAA Championships. Two weeks after my only loss, I won the Big Ten Championship by beating Wes Hand in the final, 2–1.

For both me and Wes Hand, however, the biggest match of our lives was still a week away. Sixty-four heavyweights . . . the best in the country . . . competing for the NCAA National Championship. If Hand and I could both get through our thirty-two-man brackets, we were going to wrestle each other for the title. I couldn't wait.

It was a long year since I had lost to Stephen Neal, and this was my last chance to become the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Champion. I wanted to win that title so bad. It was what I had gone through all this shit for. I came back all the way from defeat at the hands of Stephen Neal, and I was headed back into the finals. This was my chance for redemption, an opportunity to live my dream, a shot at attaining my goal.

I couldn't sleep the night before we left for the NCAA tournament. The Mississippi River runs through campus, and I walked down to this spot where we used to do training runs.

As I stood there by the river, I said to myself, “There isn't a man in the world that can stop me from standing on that podium as the NCAA Heavyweight Champion. Not Wes Hand, not anyone else they put in front of me. I'm coming home as the champion. That title is mine.”

And then a sense of calm came over my body. I went home and slept like a baby. I got up the next day and we flew down to St. Louis, Missouri, for my final matches as a college wrestler.

Getting to the finals in my senior year was a bitch. I had lost in the finals the year before, and it was burning my ass every day. Plus, you know the old expression: “Everything that can go wrong, will!”

I went through my entire senior year with a knee injury. I also had to have a salivary gland surgically removed from my neck during the season. I wasn't the wrestler that I could have been, but I was determined to be good enough to become the NCAA Champion.

Sixty-four guys were invited to the NCAA tournament. After several matches sixty-two were done, and the stage was set. Brock Lesnar vs. Wes Hand for the third and final time. And let me tell you, it was a nail-biter. We wrestled our asses off, and ended up with a tie. So the match goes into overtime. Still no winner.

When we got to the second overtime, I won the coin toss, which allowed me to choose to be on top or bottom. I knew I could ride Wes Hand, but I chose to go down. I wanted to explode out of there. Your best chance of getting away from your opponent is right off the whistle. It's the element of surprise. I tried to beat the whistle and Wes stopped me.

As our match continued, I went to stand up, but Wes pulled me down. I tried to switch, turned him around with a hip-heist, and escaped with nine seconds left. One point Lesnar. I did it. Everything I worked for . . . all the sacrifice . . . the dedication . . . the pain . . . the hopes and dreams of my family, who had sacrificed along with me . . . this was the moment we spent years fighting for. All that effort culminated in one brief moment when I was officially declared the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Wrestling Champion!

Two weeks before that, J Robinson had taught me the hip-heist. Great timing. Thanks, J.

I'M AN NCAA CHAMPION: NOW WHAT?

A
n old college roommate of J Robinson's watched the NCAA tournament, and he wanted to meet me. His name was Gerry Brisco, and he worked for the company that was known back then as the World Wrestling Federation. They have since changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, but in 2000 they were the WWF, and they were proud of their federation.

This is my book, and I'm calling them the WWE. If you don't like it, skip to the UFC chapters.

As my college days were winding down I really had to think about what I wanted to do with my life. A lot of people ask me why I didn't go for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. The answer to that one is easy. I was sick and tired of being broke.

I knew guys who were chasing the Olympic dream. They were driving up to the gym in their broken-down cars, working nine-to-five jobs to support their training. I had already been doing that my whole life. After everything I put myself through to win the NCAA title, I was done paying dues. It was time to cash in. My dream was never the Olympics. It was to win the NCAA Heavyweight Championship. I achieved my goal, and I knew in my heart it was time to move on.

The university was helping me in my transition from student athlete to professional. At the time, I was thinking about trying either professional football or professional wrestling. The school had a legal department, and they set up interviews for me with different attorneys and agents. I picked a Minneapolis lawyer named David Bradley Olsen, because he had the most experience. He had represented professional wrestlers, including Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and he had sued the WWE a couple of times.

I had also met NFL head coach Tony Dungy a few times because he played football for the University of Minnesota back in the day. He wanted me to try out for the NFL in Tampa Bay, where he was calling the shots. Tony had a lot of faith in my ability to make the team, but I made a big decision the night before I was going to get on the plane for Florida. The NFL was going to have to wait. I was being offered a sure thing, and was going to become a professional wrestler.

Again, it was really simple. WWE offered me guaranteed money, including a big signing bonus with no strings attached. I would even get paid a huge salary for the time I was training to be a pro wrestler.

My lawyers have told me I can't print how much I signed for, because of a confidentiality clause. Here's what I can say: I signed the biggest development deal in WWE history. I can also tell you that I had absolutely no idea how lucrative my contract was, because I didn't know anyone in the wrestling business. I hadn't even watched five minutes of pro wrestling in my life. All I knew was that I was a poor kid with student loans, and I was being offered more money than I'd ever seen in my entire life. Brock Lesnar was off to join the circus!

PART II

THE NEXT BIG THING

FAITH, FAMILY, FEDERATION

I
remember my first meeting with WWE. I was twenty-two years old, and Vince McMahon flew me and my lawyer out to Connecticut. As soon as we landed, there was a limousine waiting to take us to the WWE world headquarters in Stamford. The place was a little different from the gymnasiums I was used to, and looked like a rock concert that had collided with a wrestling museum. There were televisions everywhere showing WWE highlights. Heavy metal was playing over the sound system. Posters of “WWE Superstars” lined the walls. There was a state-of-the-art gym and weight room, a full-service cafeteria, and a television production studio. For a farm boy from South Dakota, it was all pretty impressive.

For those of you who don't know, Vince McMahon is world famous, and he is rich. Very rich. Since the 1980s, he has appeared on national television every week in his own programs, and he is the face of the WWE. But in addition to the “role” of WWE chairman he plays on TV, he is also the owner and creative mind behind the entire company. Vince is the absolute boss. Nothing happens in that company without his say-so. He is a big, bodybuilder type, with slick dark hair and a booming voice. He is larger than life, and can sell snow cones to Eskimos. But I wasn't a pro wrestling fan at the time, so when I walked in, all I saw was the guy who could sign my paycheck.

Vince was flanked by his lawyer, Ed Kaufman; Gerald Brisco; and Jim “J.R.” Ross. Kaufman was a typical corporate type, and looked totally out of place. Brisco was a former amateur and professional wrestler who worked behind the scenes at the TV tapings, and also as a talent scout for the company. J.R. was the host of the TV shows, the play-by-play announcer who was also—at that time—the executive vice president of talent relations.

We all sat down at a large conference table in Vince's spacious office. I don't recall all of the details of the meeting, but there was one moment I'll never forget.

As Vince and his team were explaining what I could expect from life in the WWE (remember, it was still WWF, or World Wrestling FEDERATION, at the time), J.R. leaned over the table, looked me dead in the eye, and said with his Oklahoma drawl, “Mr. Lesnar, there are three things we take very seriously in this company: Faith, Family, and Federation.” I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, so I just nodded.

I sure got it after a couple of years on the road, because by then I thought I'd lost my faith . . . I didn't have a family because I was on the road three hundred days a year . . . and all I had was the Federation. That's how Vince McMahon ends up owning all these guys. All they have is that company, that business. All they have is what Vince allows them to have. He owns their careers, and their careers become their lives, so he owns them.

It's a vicious cycle. These guys sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice. Then they make it, which means they have to work three hundred days a year, in a different city every night. That's when they lose their homes and their families. They end up working themselves to death, paying for homes they rarely visit, for kids they never see, and for ex-wives and then ex-wives' homes.

Even early on, I could see that is not how I wanted to end up. But I have to say, between that first meeting with Vince, and the last time I laced up my wrestling boots, it was one hell of a wild ride.