by Brock Lesnar
Brad was a decorated amateur wrestler. He was an NCAA champion in 1975 for North Dakota State University, and placed fourth in the 1976 Olympics. He qualified for the Olympic team in 1980, but didn’t compete due to the United States boycott. All that hard work, and he didn’t get a chance to pursue the dream.
Brad had also been an active professional wrestler for over a decade. In the United States, he was best known for his work with Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association (AWA). He also worked overseas for New Japan Pro Wrestling, first as a wrestler and later as an agent for the office.
Lots of the wrestlers who headlined big shows for many years have nothing to show for it, but Brad was smart and saved his money. All of it. I bet that cheap-ass has the first dollar he ever made. And now, because he worked so hard to save, he has a great life. Brad has a beautiful home, and can go hunting and fishing whenever he feels like it. He enjoys his time, and he should. He earned everything he has, and his body bears the scars of years on the mat and in the ring.
Soon after I started with Brad, I realized he was doing me a special favor. First, I found out that Brad had had stopped running camps for aspiring pro wrestlers over a year before he agreed to bring me in. Then, about two or three weeks into my training camp, I went out to lunch with Dan Jesser. Dan was a local wrestler that wanted to make it big-time, and at the time, he was one of the top guys on the independent circuit in Minnesota.
We were just shooting the shit, and I mentioned that I had talked to Brad about something at Brad’s house. Dan looked at me in shock and said, “Brad doesn’t let anybody in his house!” Dan told me had been working with Brad for eight years and had never once been invited over.
From that day on, I knew Brad considered me to be more than just a student. We were developing a long-standing relationship and building a true friendship. Brad trained hundreds of students over the years, and training those guys was always just business; but with me, it was different. Brad became my older brother, and to this day, he’s family. Brad doesn’t have a large family—it’s just him, his mom, and her husband, Jim. At Christmastime, Thanksgiving, all the family holidays, Brad is always welcome at our dinner table. I’ve opened my home to him the same way he opened his home to me.
CURT HENNIG
While I was training with Brad, I met someone who would become another great influence in my pro wrestling career. His name was Curt Hennig, and I wish he was here today to read this chapter.
Curt was a second-generation wrestler, the son of a big time wrestler in the AWA territory named Larry “The Axe” Hennig. When the old timers all get together and start shooting the shit about “the good old days” of the AWA, they all talk about what a big tough son of a bitch Larry Hennig was in his prime. Curt’s dad smartened him up early about what the pro wrestling business had to offer, and the price you have to pay to achieve success in it.
Curt taught me something that sticks with me to this day—in the wrestling business, you have to “Get in to get out!”
I can still hear him say the line. Curt knew the pro wrestling business was built on a pile of people who had been used for everything they were worth, and then dumped on the side of the road. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. I’m just saying that’s how it is. Since that’s the score in pro wrestling, Curt came up with the idea that the only way to keep your sanity, or your health, was to “get in to get out.”
I wish he practiced what he preached. Curt got in and really got out. He died in 2003. Nice rib . . .
I really think about him every day. We could have had so much fun together. I miss him so much, because with Curt you were never just passing time. You were enjoying every minute of it.
Why did he have to go and die?
LOUISVILLE
After training with Brad for only a few months and fulfilling my commitments to the amateur wrestling community, I was ready to head to Louisville and enter the WWE developmental system. I had started to watch a little pro wrestling on TV so I could see what I was getting myself into. I bought a pickup truck, loaded all my things into the back, and hit the road.
When I arrived in Louisville, I met up with former Golden Gopher Shelton Benjamin. I followed him as the number one heavyweight at the university, and he stayed on as an assistant coach while I was there. Like me, Shelton had signed with WWE after being recruited by Gerald Brisco. Shelton and I found a two-bedroom apartment to rent, and I was ready to start training.
My first training session was at nine o’clock on a Monday morning. When I got there, I couldn’t believe it. The “OVW training center” was nothing more than a little box in the middle of a warehouse district. I thought, “I’m working for this huge international company, and this is where all the big-time television wrestlers get trained?”
When I walked in the door, Danny Davis came right up to meet me. Danny was the owner of OVW and also the head trainer. I liked Danny from the beginning, and we became pretty good friends when I was in Louisville. I have nothing but good things to say about Danny.
On my first day, he asked me, “Can you hit the ropes, kid?” There I was, NCAA Heavyweight Champion, almost three hundred pounds, ready to take on the world, and Danny wanted to know if I could hit the ropes. I thought to myself, “I’ve done this thousands of times at Brad’s—I’ll show this SOB just how hard and fast I can come off the ropes, and how good I look doing it.”
I got in the ring and, with a full head of steam, threw myself into the ring ropes just like I did every day back at Brad’s camp. But instead of launching my body back across the ring like I was supposed to, I went straight through the ropes and crash-landed on the concrete floor with everyone watching. I nearly broke my ass in the process.
What I didn’t know at the time is that there are different types of “ropes” for wrestling rings. When I trained in Minnesota, Brad had an old-style WCW wrestling ring, with ropes made from steel cable covered by a garden hose with tape over it. Danny’s ropes were made out of real rope (just like the WWE used). Real rope has a lot more give to it than cable. I learned that the hard way.
Looking back, I can see that making a fool out of myself was a good icebreaker, because it showed everyone I was human—I make mistakes and bleed like everybody else. I can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t the least bit funny to me then.
Despite my initial stumble, I progressed quickly and excelled in practice every day. I understood what they were teaching, and I could do the things they wanted me to do in the ring.
In a matter of weeks, Danny Davis decided to put me and Shelton together as a team, and we started going to all the little towns in the area, wrestling in front of tiny crowds in bingo halls, local community churches, high school gyms, you name it. We were working with a number of guys who are pretty well known today, but at the time were just starting out like I was: Batista, John Cena, Randy Orton, Mark Henry.
It was a pretty easy life at OVW compared to the training I was used to. We were home every night, and the checks came in steady, without fail.
Danny gave me the “honor” of transporting the ring to each show, and then back to his house for storage. He said he chose me because I kept talking about my work ethic, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I had a pickup truck. Regardless, the ring was my responsibility.
Since I was in charge of the ring, I made sure all the other guys were there on time to help set it up. If they weren’t, Danny heard about it, because to me it was a team effort. I didn’t give a shit how long somebody had been there. And nobody was going to give me any back talk either, because if they did, they were going to have to get into it with me. I don’t think I was disliked for making everyone carry their own weight, but if I was, I really didn’t give a damn.
I was there to excel, and I had made up my mind to be better than anyone I was training with. I wasn’t at OVW to win a popularity contest. I was there to
learn so I could move up to the WWE where the big money was.
Some guys at OVW would stay out late every night so they could act like they were somebody for the locals in the bar. I probably ended up at the bar only twice a month, at the most, because I had no desire or interest in trying to impress the locals down there. I wanted to hit the gym in the morning before practice, do my workouts in the ring, and then have the rest of the day off. At the time, we were only doing the local wrestling shows three nights a week, with weekends off, so I had a lot of time to myself—just the way I like it.
I had a good time at OVW. Danny and his wife, Julie, were great to me. Just like with Brad, my relationship with Danny was more than just teacher–student. We actually became friends.
Danny invited me into his home, and I appreciated it. I was at Danny’s house often (because the ring was there), and Danny and Julie would usually invite me in for lunch. In exchange for the free lunches, I did some handyman work for them here and there. That’s one thing about being a farm boy: you learn to fix anything. But I also knew that if I offered to fix something, Danny would always cook me a big steak when I was done. We remain friends to this day.
After a while, I knew I had learned all I was going to learn in Louisville. John Laurinaitis was just then transitioning into the role of WWE’s VP of talent relations, and I told him I was done doing the small local shows, and that I needed a bigger challenge. I told John, “If you want me to get better, then you need to put me in the ring with better people!”
I asked John to give me a chance at the next level—just a couple of “dark matches” to show them how far along I had come. The dark matches are non-televised matches done right before television tapings to warm up the crowd and to let the WWE brass take a look at you.
I knew all I needed was a chance. Let me perform on the nontelevised portion of the show, I told John, and I will work harder and better than everyone else. If I can show you what I’ve got, I’ll be up on the main roster.
If I didn’t belong, I knew Vince would get rid of me. He was paying me too much to wait forever for me to make him a return on his investment. But as far as I was concerned, I had done my time in the Louisville minor leagues, and it was time for me to see how far I could go in the big time. I reminded John that both J.R. and Brisco had said I would only be in Louisville for a year, and by that point I had been in Louisville for a year and four months. I felt like someone had lied to me. I had done my time. I was headed back home to Minneapolis.
THE NEXT BIG THING
Within days of returning to Minneapolis, I received the call. WWE wanted me to go on the road with them, and start out by doing dark matches. The fight to make it as a wrestling entertainer was on.
The very first dark matches I remember are the ones where they put me in the ring with Billy Gunn. We were in Nashville or Knoxville (all these towns ended up being the same to me real quick) one night, and Curt and Brad had come down to watch. I was doing the Shooting Star Press—an inward backflip off the top rope to a full layout landing on top of my opponent—at the time, and both Curt and Brad had these looks on their faces like, “What the hell is wrong with you, Brock?”
They both got on me right away, saying “You’re gonna have a pretty short career if you keep doing that three-hundred-pound gorilla backflip. Figure out a new finish.”
Those guys told me straight up, because they cared. “Leave that to the smaller guys,” Curt said. “They need every advantage they can grab in this business. You don’t need that move. It’s not worth the risk.” But I kept doing the Shooting Star, because it was spectacular. I wanted to be the best, and no one my size should be able to pull off that move.
If you can’t picture the sight of a three-hundred-pound man rotating through the air and crashing down on his opponent, or if you’ve never seen me do the Shooting Star, the videos are easy to find on the Internet. You will be amazed by what you see. You will also be horrified when you see what happens when I don’t land the move. I’m lucky that I didn’t end up in a wheelchair.
In the beginning, I was traveling with Kurt Angle and Taz. That was both good and bad, because both of those guys played pretty big roles in my development, and my near destruction.
Kurt Angle was the 1996 Olympic Gold Medal winner in wrestling, and I liked the way he approached the wresting entertainment business, because when he laced up his boots, the shit was on. The word on Kurt was that he only had one gear, and that was hyper-overdrive.
Kurt and I got to know each other pretty well because we had amateur wrestling in common. And he answered my questions about the business of pro wrestling because he started a few years before me.
Kurt could have turned to ultimate fighting right after the 1996 Olympics, but the timing would’ve been bad. The UFC wasn’t “happening” in 1996, and the money was nothing like it is today.
The very first day I met Brad Rheingans, he told me, “Life is about timing.” It didn’t dawn on me at that moment, but years later I got it. Everything has to fall into the right time frame. If you’re not in the right place at the right time, it’s not going to happen for you.
To this day I get asked questions about Kurt and his chances as an MMA fighter. Let’s get one thing straight: Kurt Angle was one tough son of a bitch. Could Kurt in his prime have fought in the UFC? Absolutely. And he would have torn it up. Could Kurt fight in UFC now? Absolutely not. After all of his pro wrestling injuries, I don’t think he could even pass the physical.
Taz was a unique guy, too. Here was this sawed-off, pissed-off wrestler whose biggest push was behind him, and he was trying his hardest to transition into the role of an on-air commentator. Why not? It’s a great gig, the money is good, and you don’t have to take bumps in the ring every night.
Taz could talk his ass off, which would have made him a good commentator, and did make him an entertaining guy to be in the car with. Taz was also a big amateur wrestling fan, knew my history, and he knew I wanted to make it to the top. I wasn’t shy about it, and he liked that about me.
One day Taz heard the stupid way they wanted me to work in a dark match—old-fashioned, plodding, monster heel, fake pro wrestling bullshit. Taz just shook his head. He said, “That sucks.” No sugarcoating, no bullshit. I liked that about Taz. He had been around for a long time, and he wasn’t playing the corporate puppet. He respected my credentials, and I respected his honesty. Taz heard all these veterans giving me bad advice about how a big man is supposed to work, but I knew it was a new day and age. Taz knew it too, so he took me over to meet Paul Heyman.
As you know, Paul is writing this book with me, so it’s kind of funny talking about him, but this is where we became instant friends. I didn’t know Paul from Adam, but he got involved in my next two dark matches. Paul went right to Vince McMahon and went to bat for me.
All of a sudden the machine started getting ready for me. I was told I was needed at WrestleMania in Toronto, and I’d be wrestling during the Fan Axxess convention. Next thing I know, Paul is pulling me aside, all excited, and says, “We’re starting on TV the day after Mania.”
I made my national TV debut in March 2002. I started by doing these run-ins, which are brief appearances on camera, where I would jump in the ring and hit people with my finishing maneuver, which they ended up calling the “F-5.” The maneuver consisted of me throwing my opponent up over my head, spinning him, then slamming him to the canvas all in one fluid motion. Everyone ate it up. WWE fans were looking for a new star, and here I was just smashing everything in my path.
After my first TV shot, everything happened so fast. It’s really all just a blur. Kind of like I’ve been F-5’d myself.
My entire time in WWE was a blur, actually, but those first few months were even blurrier. Paul became my on-air “agent,” (they didn’t want him to be an old-school “wrestling manager,” and Vince liked the idea of a heel agent because he hated dealing
with Hollywood agents), and I got moved into a program pretty quick with the Hardy Boyz. I really liked working with them. They could move around, the crowds loved them, and they could sell my moves in a way that got the audience into the match and mad at me. Lita, one of the WWE “divas,” was dating Matt Hardy at the time, and she was with them on camera as well, so that gave me and Paul someone else to pick on to get even more heat. Nothing like picking on a woman to get a crowd riled up.
I want to mention something here in this book quickly, and then I want to move on from the subject:
While all this is happening, my daughter, Mya, was born. Right after my debut, and just as I started going on the road, this little baby came into my life and changed everything forever. I became a father on April 10, 2002. No matter what I do for the rest of my life, I’ll always be Mya Lynn Lesnar’s father first and foremost. I love Mya very much, and I can tell you that from the day my daughter was born, I have been a blessed man because of her.
I was picking up some really good steam on television, and I started getting booked for WWE shows all over the world right away. In the business, the more you work, and the more fans you draw, the more you make. While my paychecks were getting bigger and bigger, I was away from home more and more. That’s the trade-off, and it’s just another way the wrestling business eats you up.
Life on the road was wild. I was flying to a new city every day, and living the life of a rock star. Everywhere I went people knew me. I was having a great time, and who wouldn’t? Money. Girls. More girls. More money.
The only problem was that none of it was real. It wasn’t a life. It was killing time. I would look around the locker room before shows and think how lucky I was. I was probably the youngest guy there, and I was headed straight to the top. The other guys in that room weren’t so lucky. They were trapped in the life. They had no way out. They were drinking and popping pain pills like they were going out of style, and they were miserable because they had lost their faith along with their families—all they had was the Federation.
