Brock Lesnar is one of the WWE’s biggest superstars right now, as he was during his first stint with the pro-wrestling promotion in the early 2000’s. During an interview with ESPN’s Hannah Storm, he recalls why he left the wrestling business back then to give it a shot in real combat sports.
“I was on the road and I was injured and I was the champion and I didn’t want to quit. I had a no-quit attitude,” said Lesnar. “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.”
Lesnar left the WWE in 2004 and, after a short stint in Japan, left pro-wrestling for good in 2007. His thrive to compete ultimately brought him into the UFC and made him one of it’s biggest stars, too. But it took the two-time NCAA All-American a few detours to get there.
“I didn’t know what it was, but I tried the NFL,” Lesnar remembered. “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 went on to become the UFC’s heavyweight champion and the biggest pay-per-view attraction of his time. Only Conor McGregor managed to break Lesnar’s PPV and gate records. After two losses in a row, against Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem, Lesnar left the UFC in 2011 and returned to the WWE.