Few wrestlers have so intensely captivated the media spotlight the way former Minnesota Gophers national champion Brock Lesnar has. Now the competitor formerly known as The Next Big Thing gets revved up to make his next big move: A debut fight in mixed martial arts with K-1 Heroes. So what’s holding him back, and what’s in store? Find out below
Jeremy O’Kasick “TWM Freelance Writer
When it comes to Brock Lesnar, wrestling fans have needed to do little more than flip on their televisions to follow his every move and athletic gamble since he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2000.
At times, sportswriter and fan speculation about his career has rivaled the tabloid and paparazzi hype surrounding a marquee Hollywood celebrity: from his NCAA heavyweight title with the Gophers to his meteoritic rise with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), from his fleeting NFL tryout for the Minnesota Vikings to his marriage with former WWE star and Playboy cover girl, Rena “Sable” Mero.
In August of 2006, Lesnar announced his move into mixed martial arts (MMA) in typical dramatic fashion center-ring at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during a K-1 Heroes event. After signing a contract to compete for K-1, a Japan-based fighting group that promotes events worldwide, Lesnar even held a press conference alongside MMA legend, Royce Gracie, with whom he expected to train.
Since then, however, K-1 has run into setbacks in trying to promote their first major American pay-per-view extravaganza, putting Lesnar’s debut on hold and keeping his fans guessing once again.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m looking forward to getting in the ring and fighting,” said Lesnar in a post-training session interview at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy outside of Minneapolis. “In my contract, (the fight) has to be a pay-per-view event. That hasn’t come together yet. In the meantime, I’m training and improving my skills in this sport.”
While Lesnar said he might still train with Gracie, he has been thrilled to find a home gym in the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy where the likes of current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight titleholder, Sean “The Shark” Sherk, train among other fighting standouts. One of Lesnar’s regular training partners happens to be his former wrestling coach, Golden Gophers assistant, Marty Morgan.
“I was coming into this thing green, and Marty (Morgan) has been a huge help to me,” said Lesnar. “He was juggling being on a national championship team and still coming in here two to three times a week to be one of my sparring and ju-jitsu partners.”
Lesnar said that he has long followed the UFC since its early days in the 1990s when the sport had few rules, no weight classes, and pioneering fighters, such as Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Dan Severn, fought several times a night for purses that barely covered their hospital bills. Now regulated but with more hype and competition, the UFC has popularized ju-jitsu and MMA in the United States, getting millions of pay-per-view customers yearly and offering its top-notch fighters flush contracts.
Other well-established leagues with nationally televised events include the Japan-based, Pride Fighting, the International Fight League (IFL), and K-1, which started with only stand-up combat that combined kickboxing and other forms but has allowed grappling and on-the-ground submission wrestling under K-1 Heroes. In trying to break through to American audiences, perhaps K-1 is hoping that Lesnar and his star power will do for them what he did for WWE when he became The Next Big Thing.
“I’m 29-years-old, and I’m loving it,” said the 285 pounder. “(MMA) has become the biggest thing in the United States and in the world.”
From Down and Out to Back in the Ring
No one better describes the change in Lesnar’s life from being an international WWE superstar to a MMA rookie than Lesnar himself: “Now I’m driving the train instead of being driven by it.”
A South Dakota native, Lesnar grew up in Webster, a farm town of less than 2000 people that also happens to be the birthplace of former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. He faced uphill odds much of his life and early in his wrestling career, never taking home a South Dakota state title in high school but going on to a prolific collegiate career. At Bismark State College in North Dakota, Lesnar won a NJCAA championship in 1998. Memorably, he went on to a 50-2 record with the Gophers, winning two Big Ten titles, finishing as a national runner-up in 1999 and as the champion in 2000.
Before Lesnar had even competed in his first NCAA National Championship, he received calls and interest from pro-wrestling mogul, Vince McMahon, who eventually signed him to a contract for the WWE.
“Out of college, I had a contract for $250,000. It was a no-brainer,” said Lesnar. In WWE’s equivalent of the minor leagues, Lesnar even teamed up with former Gopher heavyweight All-American, Shelton Benjamin, to form the “Minnesota Stretching Crew” tag-team based in Louisville.
“I enjoyed the training and thought I would give it a try. Then, they put me on TV, and it was like going through the meat grinder,” said Lesnar, who became the youngest WWE heavyweight champion in history. “It was live and breathe pro wrestling seven days a week, 365 days a year. I was traveling all the time, and didn’t really have a life of my own.”
In 2004, Lesnar made his much ballyhooed crack at making it into the NFL as a walk-on at the Vikings training camp after he parted ways with the WWE. Eventually, after all the hype surrounding the camp and early pre-season games, Lesnar was cut from the squad, but he has always maintained that the decision to leave pro wrestling is one that he will never regret.
“In the end, I wasn’t happy. The money wasn’t making me happy,” said Lesnar. “I walked away from a 10-year $15-million contract. I wanted more out of life than that. I just had to walk away from it. I wanted to legitimately try football, and I gave it a shot.”
The next two years brought legal wrangling and some soul-searching for the former Gopher standout as he made a stint with a pro wrestling league in Japan and ended up in two-year in-and-out of court negotiations with the WWE. McMahon and company eventually reached a settlement with Lesnar last year. At about the same time, he married Rena “Sable” Mero in May of 2006, and Lesnar said that he has enjoyed settling down in Minnesota.
Now, while waiting for his delayed K-1 pay-per-view debut, Lesnar is also content to be back on the mat at the Martial Arts Academy, where he said he combines training styles.
“The fighting part is the easy part,” he said. “It’s the same with wrestling. It’s the training that is the most brutal mentally and physically. My philosophy is to train hard, but train smart. So I’ll fight two or three times and then see what’s next. Longevity is the key in this business.”
Wise Words from the Master
One person who sees promise in Lesnar’s MMA future is trainer, Greg Nelson, who has coached champions in multiple martial arts forms and was also a Gopher wrestler before going on to nearly 25 years in training, competing, and instructing in everything from Brazillian ju-jitsu to Muy Thai around the world.
“(Lesnar’s) skill level is already head and shoulders above so many heavyweights,” said Nelson. “If this is something he wants to continue to do, I can see him being one of the top in the world in the next few years.”
Nelson recently attended a martial arts competition in Costa Rica that attracted competitors from the UFC as well as top Japanese and Brazilian leagues. He said that after watching all the heavyweights at the event, he felt Lesnar could “walk straight through” any one of them right now. He then added that even he was surprised at Lesnar’s flexibility and athleticism when he first started training at the Academy.
“It’s awesome to have him here,” he said. “He is really taking to the striking now, and he surprises people because they think he is going to be really stiff, and he is not. He is fast and loose. Pro wrestling forced him to become agile. I mean, he was doing flips off of ropes at 280 pounds. That gives him a kinetic awareness that helps him in martial arts.”
Nelson added that his latest pupil is always more than willing to ask him questions about technique and to give his own insight into training.
“He understands training on many different levels,” he said. “These guys understand what it takes to be the best because they have already been the best. Now they are doing it in another art.”
As he adds more and more technique to his arsenal, Lesnar said he has gone back to his wrestling and grappling foundation.
“(MMA) is very compatible with wrestling, and a lot of things transfer over,” he said. “(Marty Morgan and I) say all the time, ‘I wish I would have taken ju-jitsu earlier’.”
The list of collegiate and Olympic-level wrestlers who have gone on to success and stardom in MMA competition is so lengthy and exhaustive that it could constitute a multi-part article in itself. One who draws inspiration from everyone happens to be the current UFC heavyweight champion, 43-year-old Randy Couture, a former two-time Greco-Roman Pan-Am champion and regular Olympic alternate who has now captured UFC belts between two weight divisions an uncanny five times.
Leave it up to chat room fodder to go back on forth on whether or not Lesnar, who is nearing 30, will go on for a decade in mixed martial arts or if it will be another mercurial venture. For his part, Lesnar has long since blocked out the constant hype and speculation by fans and journalists.
“I just focus on the task in front of me,” he said. “You guys have your job to do, and I’ve got mine. That’s all it is.”
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