WWE 2015 News: Brock Lesnar Staying With WWE, Officially Leaving MMA
Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar announced on Tuesday, March 24 that he was signing a multiyear contract with World Wrestling Entertainment. With his decision, Lesnar effectively ended any possibility that he would fight in the Octagon again.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Lesnar said that the decision ultimately came down to a better working schedule with the WWE as well as a mental block that kept him from going back to MMA.
Lesnar said that he spent the past two months training with different partners and coaches to get his body ready for a potential return to the UFC, but he said that he never could get his mind back in the right place where he really saw himself fighting again. After making up his mind, the former champion called Lorenzo Fertitta, co-owner of the UFC, to let him know that he was returning to WWE.
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Lesnar revealed that Fertitta made one last offer by doubling what promotion has initially offered him, but Lesnar said that he opted to stay with WWE instead.
"Lorenzo said to me, 'Can we sharpen our pencil? Can we double it?'" said Lesnar. "I said, 'It's not about that. I'm calling to tell you where my heart is, and it's not about the money,'"
"And then in the back of my mind, I'm thinking 'Well yeah, it is about the money, but I don't have to beat myself up for it.' To prepare for another MMA fight, we're talking 16, 18 weeks of pure hell, and then the cage door shuts and it's on," he explained.
Lesnar said that after having an internal disease called diverticulitis which took him out of MMA for several years, he was not the same when he was finally able to return to the sport.
"When you're sick for two or three years and you don't know what's going on, all of a sudden I went from the baddest man on the planet to vulnerable," Lesnar said. "I tried to picture myself coming down to the cage, and it was like a bad dream. It just wasn't right, it didn't feel right."
"I've been a barbarian my whole life. I'm just a smarter barbarian now. Evolution, you know?" he added.
