Brock Lesnar Says His Current WWE Persona is the Real Him, Confirms He Nearly Retired in 2020
Brock Lesnar has been living it up as a jovial, goofy babyface on WWE programming recently, resulting in fans getting behind "The Beast" in his ongoing feud with Roman Reigns. Lesnar gave a rare interview with the New York Post this week ahead of WWE's latest MSG event and revealed that despite being stoic for most of his time with the WWE, the current version people are seeing on TV is the "real" him.
"This is the real Brock Lesnar," Lesnar said. "I'm a country hillbilly f—, and that's who I'm am. I grew up the same way.'
"I can be a funny f—er," he added. "I can be serious. I can be bipolar and change my persona on a flick of a switch, just ask my kids. I can change on a dime. I can be joking with you and then rip your f—ing head off the next second. It's just the way I am."
Lesnar also admitted that he felt he had retired after WrestleMania 36, which saw him lose the WWE Championship to Drew McIntyre inside an empty WWE Performance Center. He wouldn't return until SummerSlam 2021 and has since won the WWE Championship twice, the 2021 Men's Royal Rumble and is set to main event WrestleMania 38 in a Winner Take All match with Roman Reigns for both the WWE and Universal Championships.
"Had my first wrestling match in a garage in front of no people, and 20 years later I'm WWE universal champion of the world, wrestling in front of no people," Lesnar said. "So I came full circle. I had 20 years as an athlete, as an entertainer, and I was OK with it. The pandemic hits, and my contract was up, and so in my mind, I was retired and just settling into it. I grew my beard out, grew my hair out. This wasn't some master plan. I just kind of went off the map and was OK with it."
Paul Heyman, who briefly realigned himself with Lesnar before betraying him at the Royal Rumble, praised Lesnar's reinvention in an interview back in January with The Ringer Wrestling Podcast.
"In terms of Brock, Brock just never felt like talking. Brock Lesnar does what Brock Lesnar wants to do and Brock Lesnar doesn't do what Brock Lesnar doesn't want to do," Lesnar said. "When Brock came back, he had been gone long enough and looked different enough and is really comfortable enough with himself now that he just says, 'Screw it. This is who I am and they'll like me for who I am or they won't. I'm just going to give them the real Brock Lesnar,' which is a far more smart-ass Brock Lesnar than most people were even prepared to see. But if you watched him in the UFC press conferences, this is Brock Lesnar. This is who he is. So, again, in an age where authenticity is a very big selling point with the audience, it's just getting both of them to be authentic."