Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [10]
When we went to Outback Steakhouse that night, I couldn’t even finish my steak. I was sickened by the loss. I didn’t have any excuse for losing. I thought to myself, “No one should be able to beat me. I am better than that. I am better than Wes Hand.”
When I look back, though, that loss was the best thing that could have happened to me. It made me work harder than ever before, and it made me focus on the Big Ten tourney, which was the last important match before the NCAA Championships. Two weeks after my only loss, I won the Big Ten Championship by beating Wes Hand in the final, 2–1.
For both me and Wes Hand, however, the biggest match of our lives was still a week away. Sixty-four heavyweights . . . the best in the country . . . competing for the NCAA National Championship. If Hand and I could both get through our thirty-two-man brackets, we were going to wrestle each other for the title. I couldn’t wait.
It was a long year since I had lost to Stephen Neal, and this was my last chance to become the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Champion. I wanted to win that title so bad. It was what I had gone through all this shit for. I came back all the way from defeat at the hands of Stephen Neal, and I was headed back into the finals. This was my chance for redemption, an opportunity to live my dream, a shot at attaining my goal.
I couldn’t sleep the night before we left for the NCAA tournament. The Mississippi River runs through campus, and I walked down to this spot where we used to do training runs.
As I stood there by the river, I said to myself, “There isn’t a man in the world that can stop me from standing on that podium as the NCAA Heavyweight Champion. Not Wes Hand, not anyone else they put in front of me. I’m coming home as the champion. That title is mine.”
And then a sense of calm came over my body. I went home and slept like a baby. I got up the next day and we flew down to St. Louis, Missouri, for my final matches as a college wrestler.
Getting to the finals in my senior year was a bitch. I had lost in the finals the year before, and it was burning my ass every day. Plus, you know the old expression: “Everything that can go wrong, will!”
I went through my entire senior year with a knee injury. I also had to have a salivary gland surgically removed from my neck during the season. I wasn’t the wrestler that I could have been, but I was determined to be good enough to become the NCAA Champion.
Sixty-four guys were invited to the NCAA tournament. After several matches sixty-two were done, and the stage was set. Brock Lesnar vs. Wes Hand for the third and final time. And let me tell you, it was a nail-biter. We wrestled our asses off, and ended up with a tie. So the match goes into overtime. Still no winner.
When we got to the second overtime, I won the coin toss, which allowed me to choose to be on top or bottom. I knew I could ride Wes Hand, but I chose to go down. I wanted to explode out of there. Your best chance of getting away from your opponent is right off the whistle. It’s the element of surprise. I tried to beat the whistle and Wes stopped me.
As our match continued, I went to stand up, but Wes pulled me down. I tried to switch, turned him around with a hip-heist, and escaped with nine seconds left. One point Lesnar. I did it. Everything I worked for . . . all the sacrifice . . . the dedication . . . the pain . . . the hopes and dreams of my family, who had sacrificed along with me . . . this was the moment we spent years fighting for. All that effort culminated in one brief moment when I was officially declared the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Wrestling Champion!
Two weeks before that, J Robinson had taught me the hip-heist. Great timing. Thanks, J.
I’M AN NCAA CHAMPION: NOW WHAT?
An old college roommate of J Robinson’s watched the NCAA tournament, and he wanted to meet me. His name was Gerry Brisco, and he worked for the company that was known back then as the World Wrestling Federation. They have since changed their name