Brock Lesnar famously left the WWE in 2004 in an attempt to start a career in the NFL. And while that didn’t pan out, Lesnar did eventually wind up winning the UFC Heavyweight Championship during his mixed martial arts career before making his way back to WWE in 2012. The Undertaker, while on the True Geordie podcast this week, described the conversations he had with Lesnar prior to his departure.
“I had a long talk with Brock. He came to me and wasn’t happy,” Undertaker said (h/t Fightful). “Brock is not a people person. Happy Cowboy Brock is a little different. He keeps to himself, hunts and fishes, does all that. It’s a tough life, traveling the way we do. We don’t always have charter planes and we have to go through public airports. We’re always constantly around people. It’s difficult because some days you just hurt. He felt like he was all beat up by the time he got to the UFC. It’s hard to put on that facade when you feel like crap, you haven’t slept, you haven’t eaten properly and you have someone coming up, ‘Can I take a picture?’ Some people can handle it and grit their teeth and do it, some people can’t,”
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“Brock was at a point where he wanted to do something different,” he added. ” I told him, he was thinking about going to play pro football, I said, ‘Brock, you have to do what’s right for Brock.’ Everyone is going to be pissed that you’re going to leave and they put all this money and push behind you, but if you don’t go do this, you’re going to look back with a what if.’ I don’t know how much influence it had. He did end up leaving. He tried football, didn’t work, he ends up in the UFC. I didn’t hold any grudge. In the back of my mind, I felt like he would be back some day. It’s usually the way it works out. I do know that you can’t life with ‘what if.’ I didn’t have a big problem like most people did with it.”
Since returning to WWE, Lesnar has won seven world championships and has main evented WrestleMania three times. He’ll face Roman Reigns to unify the WWE and Universal Championships in the main event of WrestleMania 38 on April 3.
