Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [50]
But that was looking far into the future.
Brock Lesnar vs. WWE.
WWE vs. Brock Lesnar.
Before I ever got to that last match with Kurt, I had spent a fortune fighting against a big, publicly traded company that had unlimited resources. WWE did an excellent job of making me spend a ridiculous amount of money fighting for the simple right to go out and work for a living, but the day of reckoning was at hand.
In February 2006, the judge ordered us to enter into what’s called mediation, which is an attempt to settle the case before a trial, in front of a federal magistrate, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. If we were not able to reach a settlement, the judge would finally decide the motion I had filed nearly a year earlier to have my noncompete agreement declared to be a worthless piece of shit. WWE was running out of ways to delay that from happening, but what was I going to do once I was a free man?
The mediation was scheduled for the day after the Super Bowl, so David Olsen and I flew in and caught part of the game in the hotel bar. We got up the next morning and headed for the courthouse, and I wasn’t holding out any hope that WWE would accept any settlement because Vince McMahon wasn’t going to allow me to show that his noncompete agreements were unenforceable.
WWE claimed that my demand for freedom was outrageous. I thought WWE’s offers were insulting. We kept going back and forth, and I just wanted to walk out and go home, but the judge had ordered us to hash things out this way, so we finally worked out the outline of a deal.
Settling the case was the right move to make, because if it came to trial, and even if I won in court, there would be appeals and more delays, and I just wanted to be done with it all and move on with everything. WWE was motivated to settle because they didn’t want a public court declaring their noncompete clauses to be illegal. That would open the floodgates and cause them all sorts of problems with other wresters who might be thinking about leaving.
I’ve been warned by my lawyers that I can’t go into detail here about the terms of the settlement because it’s confidential. What horseshit. I made some compromises, and so did WWE. In the end, we both got a deal we could live with.
There. I didn’t reveal any specifics, but you get the point. WWE didn’t lose face, and I was a free man, with my whole life ahead of me, and the ability to choose how I wanted to earn a living so that I could feed my family. All I had to do now was make the decision regarding what I wanted to do.
I didn’t have to think about it very long. I wanted to compete as a real athlete. I wanted to test myself. I talked it over with Rena, who was now my wife, and she assured me she would be supportive in anything I decided I was going to do. My wife knows I’m a competitor, and that competition is what drives me. It’s in my blood. It’s what I want to do. It’s what I was made for.
In 2006, the fight business was picking up steam and getting a lot of serious attention from the media. It looked to me like there was money to be made if I could stir up some noise and grab everyone’s attention again. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile in life ever is.
My legal battle with WWE was behind me. So was the NFL, and my dance with vodka and Vicodins, and, I thought, Japan Pro Wrestling. It was time to get back to doing what was second nature to me, what I had been trained to do since I was five years old.
So, looking for the next great challenge in my life, I got into the world of mixed martial arts. A whole new adventure was about to begin.
GETTING STARTED IN MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
When I decided to become a fighter, there were certain things I had to accept from day one. I’m an athlete and a wrestler, but that doesn’t automatically make me a great mixed martial artist. To get to the top of the sport, I was going to need a lot of coaching.
I asked around about all the different training facilities, and decided to give Pat Miletich’s gym in Bettendorf, Iowa,