Death Clutch

by Brock Lesnar

  During the first round, I listened to my trainers’ advice, and just tried to feel Randy out. Could I get him up against the cage? Could I maneuver him? Was he leaving me any openings?

  As I was feeling Randy out, he went to his old bread and butter, and tried to stand me up against the cage, where he could use his dirty boxing against me. But I saw it coming, shot on him, and took him to the ground, where I was able to control him. All three judges had me winning that round on their scorecards.

  I came out for the second round, and caught Randy with a right hand, but he countered and caught me with a right of his own that opened up a cut above my eye. Randy saw the blood and thought he had me rocked, and he came in to finish the job. That’s when I unloaded on him. I caught him behind the left ear with a solid shot, and he went down.

  The moment Randy collapsed, I jumped right on him. I knew this was my chance to finish him off, and I wasn’t going to let up until the referee, Mario Yamasaki, pulled me off and declared me the winner. I pummeled Couture unmercifully. It was just like going hunting. I was never going to give him a chance to escape. I just kept throwing my hands down on him as hard as I could. I could taste the victory, I could feel the victory was just moments away.

  And that’s when Yamasaki stopped the fight, and declared Couture unable to intelligently defend himself from my attack. The Legend had been defeated. I was the UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World!

  Beating Randy Couture for the title was a great moment for me, but in the back of my head, all I could think of was getting my hands on Frank Mir again. As much as winning the title was the greatest professional moment I had experienced, losing that first UFC fight to Frank was still bothering me.

  Meanwhile, the UFC was still going to crown an “Interim” Heavyweight Champion, and that guy was going to face me for the undisputed title. I have to hand it to Dana White and UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, because they really knew what they were doing. The interim title fight was going to be between Antônio “Minotauro” Nogueira and . . . you guessed it . . . my old pal Frank Mir.

  I really wanted to fight Big Nog, because he looked like the kind of fighter I would enjoy getting into the Octagon against. He’s just an old-school fighter who enjoyed the battleground, the same type of warrior mind-set possessed by Randy Couture. But as much as I wanted to test my skills against Big Nog, I wanted to beat the shit out of Frank Mir even more. I needed to redeem myself against Frank. That loss to him was painful to me.

  When Big Nog and Frank squared off, I was right in the front row, and I was cheering for Frank all the way.

  From the first moment of the fight, I could tell Nogueira was sick. He should have been in bed, not in the Octagon. I’m not talking about the guy having a cold or the sniffles or something, he was really ill.

  What none of us knew at the time is that Nog had just battled a staph infection. When he got into the Octagon against Frank, he wasn’t 100 percent. He wasn’t even 50 percent. His reflexes weren’t there, his reaction time was slowed, and he made Frank look like Muhammad Ali.

  Frank Mir, the man who was born with a golden horseshoe up his ass, was once again handed a victory. He stood in the Octagon against someone who was much more of a man, much more of a fighter, than he could ever hope to be, and he got an easy knockout because his opponent had no business competing that night. Frankie Boy was crowned the UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion, and he should have retired on the spot, because his next step was to go up against me.

  The UFC put the camera on me at ringside to get my reaction. I just smiled, and told the crowd that Frank had just given me an early Christmas present.

  I don’t know if Frank really, truly believed in his heart that he was going to be able to handle me the second time around, but I knew for an absolute certainty that I was going to beat him and get my redemption . . . and become the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World.

  My fight with Frank was scheduled for a few months down the road, but he had to postpone it due to a training injury. That turned out to be another lucky break for Frank, because he got to fight me for the undisputed title in the main event of the biggest mixed martial arts show of all time, UFC 100.

  ROAD TO REDEMPTION

  UFC 100 was scheduled for July 11, 2009, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, and my fight with Frank Mir for the undisputed title was the main event. I kept dreaming about what was going to happen in that fight, and I knew I was going to pull that golden horseshoe right out of Frank’s ass and beat him over the head with it.

  Frank went around bragging about how he had beaten me, which was one thing. But now he was walking around like it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to beat me again, and that he was already a champion. He’s walking around with a fake title belt, and he thinks it carries the same meaning as the real title? Frank was lucky to get a fight with Big Nog for the fake title when Nog was sick as hell.

  Frank was talking about how my punches felt like the ones his little sister would land after jumping on his back when they were kids. Really? I had made hamburger meat out of his face during the eighty-five seconds I dominated our first fight, and now he’s going to talk about me like I’m some bum? Frank was so arrogant, and it made me just want to punch him in the face so hard that I’d knock his head clean off his shoulders.

  Even now, just thinking about him makes me want to hand a beating to Frank Mir again. And again. And again.

  When I had to do the photo shoot with Frank for the very first UFC Magazine, I kept looking at him and asking myself, “How could I have given this guy a win? How could I let someone like THAT get their hand raised against ME?”

  As soon as we started training camp, we put the pieces together on what it would take to beat Frank. It was easy to come up with a game plan because I knew in my mind that I had him beat the first time. I just had to control Frank, and it was obvious to me and my trainers that if I just got my hands on him, I could control him easily.

  I wanted this fight bad, not just because I wanted to become the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion, but because I wanted the satisfaction of kicking Frank’s ass. I wanted to beat him at his own game. I hated the fact that Frank was running his big fat mouth about how he was a great jujitsu expert, and about how he showed me the difference between jujitsu and wrestling, blah blah blah.

  Frank claimed he was this great jujitsu black belt. What a crock of shit. Hey, let’s face facts . . . when it comes to jujitsu, the truth is that a black belt doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. Black-belt-schmack-belt. I’m a white belt, but I beat a black belt at his own game. Shouldn’t that make me a black belt?

  Frank submitted me because I made a stupid mistake, and all of a sudden he’s the world’s greatest submission artist. Sorry, everyone, but guys like Frank get awarded black belts based on how many hours they spend in the dojo. The belts come from the guys’ own instructors. They don’t have to beat anyone in a real fight in order to win them.

  My coach didn’t give me the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Title. I earned it. My training staff didn’t award me the UFC Championship either. I earned both by kicking someone’s ass for the honor of being champion. I deserved to be recognized as the best by beating someone man-to-man, in the spirit of competition. Frank got his black belt because he paid the instructor a lot of money over the years and put in his time. Big deal.

  A lot of people talk about how I turned my back on Frank after the referee gave us our instructions in the middle of the Octagon. I guess we were supposed to touch gloves. I wasn’t in the mood to touch gloves with Frank Mir. I had no desire to be respectful toward him. After all the shit he said about me, it was time for him to back it up. Hey, I said a lot of shit about him, too, and I was ready to back it up the moment the referee said it was legal for me to do so.

  While we’re on the subject of touching gloves and all that pageantry, let’s get something straight. T
here are a lot of rules and regulations in the UFC, but touching gloves is not one of them. No state athletic commission mandates that fighters must touch gloves before they fight. So, in my mind, I’M NOT OBLIGATED TO TOUCH GLOVES OR HAVE A LICK OF RESPECT FOR MY OPPONENT, either before or after a fight. This is not a bunch of neighborhood kids all playing around on a bright sunny day in the backyard. This is a sport. At its very core, it’s a fight.

  I did exactly what I planned on doing in that fight. I took Frank down, controlled him, and hit him in the head repeatedly, and with violent intent. I scrambled his brains before the fight was stopped in the second round. I wish the referee would have let the fight go on a few seconds longer so I could have gotten the satisfaction of punching Frank in the face a few more times.

  That win was very emotional for me. I had waited seventeen long months to shut Frank’s mouth, and it felt so good when I finally did it.

  So there I am, in the Octagon, pumped full of adrenaline from the fight, crowd screaming, lights and cameras in my face, Frank in the corner with his face all messed up, and Joe Rogan sticks a microphone in front of me and asks, “Hey, Brock, how does it feel?”

  How does it feel?

  I’ve been waiting for seventeen months to punch this overhyped asshole Frank Mir in the face, use my wrestling skills to control his body, manhandle him like a bitch. I’ve been waiting seventeen months to prove to myself, the public, God, and everyone else who cares or doesn’t care, that this guy doesn’t measure up to Brock Lesnar. I’ve been waiting seventeen months to pull that golden horseshoe out of Frank’s ass and beat him over the head with it.

  That’s when it all came out. All of the emotion. All of the pent-up anger.

  First, I flipped off the audience with both hands, because they were still booing me. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. A little WWE left in me? A little bit of the heel wrestler? Maybe. Then Mir stumbled over to me. I was so amped up from the win, I failed to see that Frank was actually coming over to shake my hand. All I could think of was that I got the last punch in, and now I’m going to get in the last word. So I went nose-to-nose with him, got right back up in his busted face.

  That’s when I went on my tirade.

  I don’t know why, but I happened to look down and see the Bud Light logo on the Octagon floor, and it set me off. Bud Light was a UFC sponsor, and they had a lot of their people at the fight. But they weren’t a Brock Lesnar sponsor, so I said I was going to celebrate by drinking “Coors Light, because Bud Light won’t pay me anything.” I also threw in “I might even get on top of my wife tonight.”

  Hey, Joe Rogan asked me how it feels.

  Well, Joe, that’s how it feels.

  Dana wasn’t happy. UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta wasn’t happy. My lawyers, who had been chased down the hall by Dana and Lorenzo and given a tongue-lashing, weren’t happy. My own sponsors, sitting a few feet away, weren’t happy. Hey, if it matters to you, I was pretty happy. Well, at least I was happy for a little while.

  What was I supposed to say? “Congratulations to Frank Mir for a great fight”?

  Are you kidding me? And besides, there is more to the story. I don’t know how much trouble I’m going to cause by revealing any of this, but it’s the truth, and that’s why I’m telling this story in my book. If anyone has a different version, write your own damn book and tell the world how you see it!

  About a month before UFC 100, Dana and Lorenzo flew to Minnesota to negotiate a new contract with me. My lawyers and I took them on a quick tour of the DeathClutch gym, then we went to a local resort to sit down and talk.

  In addition to the contract, we discussed bigger sponsorship possibilities. I thought the UFC people were going to set something up for me before UFC 100, but we never heard anything about it again.

  I don’t know if I was supposed to be pissed about that, or if it’s just one of those things. I’m not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. I’m also not someone who likes to be played, so the Bud Light thing was somewhere in the back of my mind during the fight with Frank Mir, and when I saw that logo on the Octagon floor, the trigger was tripped. Hey, I was on top of the world, looking down. And when I looked down, I saw that big Bud Light logo, and all that went through my mind was how much money UFC was making on that sponsorship, and how much I wasn’t.

  Everyone got a taste of Brock Lesnar that night. Unfiltered. I said what was on my mind. No script. No bullshit. Some liked what they heard, others didn’t. I don’t care.

  Before the press conference that night, Dana took me into a bathroom and let me know what was on his mind. I said later that night that it was a “whip-the-dog session,” and believe me, it was. Dana was trying to run a business where we could all make a lot of money together. He explained that pissing off major sponsors was not the way to do it. And just so I’m honest as hell here in my own book about it, let me say that he didn’t phrase his explanation too nicely. He was upset with me, and the truth is, he had every right to be.

  That was probably the quickest trip ever from top of the world to doghouse. By the time we worked our way from the basement of the arena up to the press conference, I had settled down, and the professional side of me took over (if there is one). I had found a Bud Light keg at one of the concession stands on the way up, and I picked it up and was going to carry it in on my shoulder, but Dana saw what I was doing and nixed that idea. I still think it would have been pretty funny. Just imagine the press we would have gotten if I had walked into the press conference with a Bud Light keg on my shoulder.

  My lawyers put a Bud Light bottle in my hand before I walked into the press conference room, and I put it front and center by my microphone when I sat down to face the media. They all got a few good laughs out of that.

  Because I’m a “real man of genius,” I also apologized to Bud Light. I told them, “I’m not biased. I’ll drink any beer.”

  I’ll be the first to admit, I was unprofessional that night. But despite all of the fallout from my outburst, I was as happy as I have ever been in my whole life. I had found a career that excited me, but that also allowed me to be with my family. I was married to the woman I loved and knew I’d happily spend the rest of my life with. Rena had just given birth to our son Turk, a healthy baby boy. I was making good money. I was supporting my family like I always wanted, and there wasn’t anything we needed that we didn’t have.

  Life wasn’t just good, it was great. This was the greatest time in my life.

  And then I almost died.

  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

  Going into UFC 100, I was like a grumpy bear with a sore ass. Fight week is miserable, because I’m just sitting around, waiting to get into a fight with someone. The training is over. The work, for the most part, is done. I get phone calls from friends, asking “what’s up?” Nothing’s up. I’m just sitting around, waiting to step into a cage in front of millions of people, and either kick someone’s ass or get embarrassed by my opponent. That’s it.

  The week of a fight is the longest week on the calendar for me. I spend my time trying to think about anything except what’s on everyone’s mind . . . THE FIGHT. There’s nothing left to do, except drive yourself crazy waiting for that Saturday night, when you go to the arena and finally get to actually do what you’ve just spent months and months training for. The hay, as they say, is in the barn. But I have to go to press conferences and talk about the fight. I have to go to weigh-ins and talk about the fight. Reporters ask me the same questions over and over. My face is everywhere. I can’t get away from it. Everywhere I look, everyone I talk to, it’s always there.

  I went to the movies eight times during the week of UFC 100. Matinees, nighttime movies, anything to escape the hype for a couple of hours. It’s like the calm before the storm.

  Marty Morgan is my head trainer because he’s been around me for years. Marty understands me, which means he knows w
hen to talk to me about the fight, and when to just leave me alone with my own thoughts. He knows when I need to be with my training partners, and he knows when I shouldn’t have anyone around me. When another person knows you inside and out like that, he can’t be replaced. He’s the key, the glue that holds everything together.

  Thank God my wife was mature enough to understand what I needed to do. She went through the last part of her pregnancy practically alone while I trained. But she understood, and she couldn’t have been more supportive.

  Coming out of UFC 100 was a totally different deal. We were all on an emotional high. Even though I was the happiest I had ever been, I had to clear my head. I had to get out of fight mode, and back into the mind-set of just being a husband, and being “Daddy” to my kids.

  That’s the part people need to understand. Going into a fight, I’m Brock Lesnar, UFC champion, professional mixed martial artist. Pro fighter. But the minute the main event is over, I only want to spend time with my wife and kids and the rest of my family.

  As soon as the post-fight press conference for UFC 100 was over, we flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and spent a week hiding out in the woods. We went to Yellowstone. I got to know my new son.

  When we got back to civilization, I got word that Dana wanted me to defend the title against Shane Carwin.

  I took the fight. Why? Because I’ve never turned down a fight with anyone the UFC has offered. You want me to fight Shane Carwin? Then I’ll fight Shane Carwin. I’ll fight Shane Carwin, and I’ll defend my title against him the same way I plan on doing with every other top challenger you put against me.

  But when I started training for the fight with Shane, I could feel that something was wrong. I was exhausted all the time. Tired. Worn out. No energy.

  There were days when I would get home from training, and I literally could not get off the couch. I had been battling some stomach problems for a while, but I didn’t think too much of them and just went on. That was a big mistake. I should have listened to my body.