Brock Lesnar

Brock Edward Lesnar is a professional mixed martial artist currently signed under the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) promotion. Most notably he defeated Randy Couture for the UFC Heavyweight Championship a year after his MMA debut, on November 15, 2008.

Lesnar started his professional sports career by signing with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later changed to World Wrestling Entertainment WWE) in 2000. There he rose rapidly to the top of the WWE ranks, facing notable characters like Bill Goldberg, Kurt Angle and The Undertaker. Lesnar became the 2002 King of the Ring, and the winner of the 2003 Royal Rumble, while also becoming the WWE Champion three times.

In 2004, Lesnar left professional wrestling to pursue a career in the NFL. He signed with the Minnesota Vikings for the 2004 NFL season but ended up being a late cut. He went back to professional wrestling shortly after.

In 2006, Lesnar made known his intentions to compete in the MMA. He made his MMA debut on June 2, 2007, facing Min-Soo Kim in a K-1 sanctioned event, which he won by submission strikes.

Brock Lesnar attended Webster High School in Webster, South Dakota where he had a wrestling record of 33-0-0 in his senior year. Lesnar later attended the University of Minnesota on a full wrestling scholarship for his junior and senior years of college; his roommate was fellow professional wrestler Shelton Benjamin who also served as Lesnar's assistant coach. Lesnar won the 2000 NCAA wrestling championship as a heavyweight after placing second in 1999.

Prior to joining the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Lesnar also wrestled at Bismarck State College in Bismarck, North Dakota. Lesnar finished his amateur career as a two-time NJCAA All-American, 1998 NJCAA Heavyweight Champion, two-time NCAA All-American, two-time Big Ten Conference Champion, and the 2000 NCAA heavyweight champion with a record of 106-5 overall in four years of college.

Mixed Martial Arts

K-1 Grand Prix (2007)

On April 28, 2006, Lesnar appeared inside the ring after the final match of K-1 Hero's Las Vegas and announced his intent to join the MMA promotion. He trained with Minnesota Martial Arts Academy under Greg Nelson, and University of Minnesota Assistant Head wrestling coach Marty Morgan. Brock Lesnar announced on August 12 in Las Vegas that he had signed a deal with the K-1 promotion. His first fight was scheduled for June 2, 2007 on the K-1 Dynamite!! USA show against Choi Hong-man of Korea. However, prior to the match, Choi Hong-Man was replaced by Min Soo Kim. Lesnar submitted Min Soo Kim due to strikes in 1 minute 9 seconds of the first round to win his first official MMA match.


Ultimate Fighting Championship (2008 - present)

During UFC 77, it was announced that Brock Lesnar had reached a deal to fight with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). On February 2, 2008, Lesnar made his debut with the promotion in an event titled UFC 81: Breaking Point against former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Frank Mir. Lesnar secured an early takedown, but was deducted a point for hitting Mir on the back of the head. Following another takedown by Lesnar, Mir managed to secure a kneebar and force a submission at 1:30 of the first round. Due to the large size of his hands, Lesnar was wearing 4XL gloves for the fight, making him the second man in Nevada's combat sports history to wear such gloves after Choi Hong-man. At UFC 82, it was announced that former UFC Heavyweight Champion and UFC Hall of Fame inductee Mark Coleman would fight Lesnar at UFC 87:Seek and Destroy. Coleman was forced to withdraw from the fight due to a training injury, and Lesnar's opponent was changed to Heath Herring. In the early seconds of the first round, Lesnar dropped Herring with a straight right. For the rest of the fight, Lesnar kept the fight on the ground and went on to win by unanimous decision.

Lesnar's next opponent was Randy Couture for the UFC Heavyweight Championship at UFC 91:Couture vs Lesnar on November 15. Lesnar beat Couture via a technical knockout in Round 2, becoming the UFC Heavyweight Champion.

On December 27, 2008, at UFC 92, Frank Mir defeated Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira for the Interim Heavyweight title and was to face Lesnar for the Undisputed UFC Heavyweight Championship at UFC 98. Immediately after winning the Interim Heavyweight title, Mir found Lesnar in the crowd and shouted at him "You've got my belt."

However, due to a knee injury to Mir, the title unification match with Lesnar that was originally slated to be the UFC 98 main event was postponed. The news broke during the broadcast of UFC 96 that the bout had been cancelled and was replaced by Rashad Evans vs. Lyoto Machida for the UFC Light-Heavyweight Championship." Lesnar won the postponed rematch with Mir at UFC 100 on July 11, 2009, via technical knockout after dominating his opponent for the duration of the bout. During his post-match celebration, Lesnar flipped off an aggressive crowd of people who had been booing him. He made a disparaging comment about the PPV's primary sponsor Bud Light, claiming they "won't pay me nothin'", promoting Coors Light instead. He then implied he might even get on top of his wife after the show. He would later apologize for his actions in his post-fight press conference, where he held a bottle of Bud Light.

In January 2009, Brock Lesnar signed a supplement endorsement deal with Dymatize Nutrition. A CD containing training footage of Lesnar are found inside the boxes of Dymatize Xpand and Energized Xpand.

Lesnar grew up on a farm in South Dakota, and later joined the National Guard at the age of seventeen. In January 2001, Lesnar was arrested for receiving large amounts of what was alleged to be illegal substances. The charges were later dropped when it was discovered the substances were in fact legal sports supplements and were later described by his defense attorney as a "vitamin type of thing."

Lesnar has one daughter, Mya Lynn who was born on April 10, 2002, with his ex-fiancée, Nicole. He left Nicole in 2003 in order to begin a relationship with Rena "Sable" Mero who was recently divorced from Marc Mero. Lesnar and Mero were engaged in 2004, separated in 2005, then reconciled later that year and married on May 6, 2006. Lesnar has one stepchild with Mero: Mariah, a stepdaughter born to Mero and her late husband, Wayne Richardson. The couple had their first child together, a son named Turk in June 2009.

Lesnar has numerous tattoos, with the most prominent being a stylized skull in the center of his back and a large sword on his chest.

Lesnar makes an appearance in the video game WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain, which is named after the quote that WWE commentator Tazz attributed to Lesnar, "here comes the pain." Other video games Lesnar has also appeared in include WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth, WWE WrestleMania XIX, WWE Crush Hour, Madden NFL 06, UFC 2009 Undisputed, and the PlayStation 2 version of Wrestle Kingdom.

Lesnar was on the cover of Flex Magazine. Lesnar was also featured in Minneapolis' City Pages in February 2008. In February 2008 Lesnar was featured on the cover of Muscle & Fitness magazine.

WWE Home Video released a DVD in 2003 titled Brock Lesnar: Here Comes the Pain. The DVD covered Lesnar's career up to 2003 which featured some of his biggest matches.

Lesnar also owns an MMA Clothing line called "Death Clutch".

Illness

On October 26, 2009, it was announced that Lesnar had pulled out of the UFC 106 card in which he was set to face Shane Carwin for the UFC Heavyweight Championship due to an illness. UFC President Dana White said that Brock had been ill for three weeks and claimed he had never been this sick in his life and that it would take him a while to recover, his fight with Carwin was rescheduled for UFC 108 in early 2010. On November 4, it was confirmed that Lesnar was suffering from mononucleosis and that his bout with Carwin would have to wait a bit longer, thus the fight for UFC 108 was cancelled. On November 14 at the UFC 105 post-fight conference, Dana stated, "He's not well and he's not going to be getting well anytime soon." and that an interim title match might need to be set up. In addition to mononucleosis, it was revealed that Lesnar was suffering from a serious intestinal disorder called Diverticulitis that would require a surgical procedure. After further diagnosis, on November 16 Lesnar underwent surgery to close a perforation in his intestine that had been leaking fecal matter into his abdomen, causing pain, abcesses, and overtaxing his immune system to the point that he contracted mononucleosis. From the level of damage to Lesnar's system, the surgeon guessed that the intestinal condition had been ongoing for around a year.