From the mat to the ring, to the field, and to the cage; Brock Lesnar is the epitome of a ‘sporting journeyman’.
The American juggernaut might be famous for his days suplexing wrestlers through tables and later crashing his way toward UFC gold but between all of that, he was also a professional NFL player.
Whilst Brock Lesnar failed to find major success on the football field, he was still good enough to be offered a potentially life-changing deal by the Minnesota Vikings – a deal that he ultimately turned down.
Brock Lesnar turned down life-changing NFL deal before UFC run
Following his match at WrestleMania XX in March 2004, Lesnar shocked the wrestling world when he announced that he was leaving the organization to pursue a career in the NFL.
Lesnar hadn’t competed in American football since his high school days but remained steadfast on giving it one last shot, telling a local radio station that he was still better than most professional players.
“I’ve been an underdog in athletics since I was five, I got zero college offers for wrestling [and] now people say I can’t play football, that it’s a joke… I say I can – I’m as good an athlete as a lot of guys in the NFL, if not better.”
Lesnar reportedly made quite an impression at the NFL Scouting Combine, eventually signing with the Minnesota Vikings a few weeks later – although the writing was soon on the wall for his eventual exit.
| Preseason Stats | 40-Yard Dash | Vertical Jump | Broad Jump | Bench Press |
| Brock Lesnar | 4.7 seconds | 35 inches | 10 feet | 225lbs (x30 times) |
In April, Lesnar was involved in a traffic collision whilst riding his motorbike, resulting in several painful injuries – including a broken jaw, pulled groin, bruised pelvis, and broken hand.
The American standout would play in several preseason games for the Vikings but failed to show enough to make it to the big leagues, with reports claiming that he was still struggling to fully recover from the accident.
Lesnar was ultimately released by the Vikings later that Summer but would receive an offer to play for the team in NFL Europe League (NFL Europa), a deal that he would reject.
According to veteran reporter Dave Meltzer, the reason for Lesnar’s NFL exit was because he was “never home to see his family,” and that he’d finally come to terms with the fact he was “so far behind” his teammates.
“You have to feel confident, and I didn’t,” he told Meltzer about his NFL tenure in 2007.
“I realized I was unprepared at the Vikings training camp. I was thinking to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ Because of my lack of experience, I felt it wasn’t for me.”
Lesnar would make his UFC debut in 2008 against Frank Mir and claimed the heavyweight title by the end of the year, defending the belt twice before exiting the MMA world in 2016.
Brock Lesnar once got revenge with a ‘nasty’ suplex on the football field
If there was ever someone who you’d want backing you up in an on-field scrap – it’d be Brock Lesnar, right?
During an appearance on ‘The NFL Up’ show back in 2016, former Minnesota Vikings player Nate Burleson was asked what the ‘nastiest thing he ever saw on a football field was.’
“You remember Brock Lesnar, WWE guy? He came out and somebody cheap-shotted Daunte Culpepper late and Brock was like ‘Who did it?’… The next play he went and suplex’d the guy; that was a different type of nasty.”
The show co-hosts understandably laughed at the idea of Lesnar opting to bring out his WWE moves on the football field, with Burleson calling the move (and post-Suplex reaction) a ‘royale rumble’ of sorts.
“He picked up a grown man after the play, it was a Royale Rumble, that was Minnesota vs Kansas City during training camp [and] that was a nasty Suplex, on the football field.”
Interestingly, Lesnar did once appear as a player in the video game ‘Madden NFL O6’ as a defensive tackle free agent where he had an overall rating of 69.