Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [67]
But what was most important to me was that I wanted to be a better husband to my wife and a better father for my children. It would be great to be the best UFC fighter ever, but none of that means anything without my family. They are everything to me, and they will always be my first priority. I hate what I went through, but it made me appreciate my family even more.
And so, with my family’s support, I got ready for my comeback. If I could beat diverticulitis, there wasn’t a man alive who was going to stand in my way.
THE LONG SHORT ROAD BACK
UFC wanted me to fight as soon as possible, but that meant waiting until the beginning of the summer. First, they had to crown another Interim Champion. That decision was made in December, when no one knew if I was ever going to be able to fight again. Dana, Lorenzo, and Joe Silva chose Shane Carwin and The Man With The Golden Horseshoe Up His Ass, Frank Mir, to fight in New Jersey at UFC 111. If the doctors had to perform the drastic surgery on me, that fight would have been to determine the new UFC Heavyweight Champion. If I could make it back, the Carwin vs. Mir fight would be for the Interim Championship, and the winner would face me for the real title mid-year.
I don’t blame UFC for continuing to promote the Interim title fight even after I got clearance to return. You never know in the fight game. I could have gone back into training, and ended up right back in the hospital. That possibility was always looming. If they pulled the plug on the Interim title, and I got sick again, UFC would have to start all over, and that’s a long time to go without a Heavyweight Champion.
I brought in Luke Richesson full-time as a strength and condition coach, and he turned out to be one of the most valuable members of my training staff, since his job was to rebuild me into a stronger but healthier athlete. Luke and I had been down this road before, when I was trying out for the NFL after messing up my body in that motorcycle crash. Here we were again, this time fighting back against my own body, which had attacked me from within.
Luke put me on a program and I started to gain lean muscle mass. I was feeling much healthier than before. I would joke around a lot about never eating my veggies before, but diverticulitis changed my outlook on a lot of things, and one of the important changes was that I was now watching everything that went past my lips. I worked hard for a lot of years to build up my body, and I ended up flat on my back, delirious, all drugged up on morphine because I got diverticulitis. When you quickly go from being a 280-pound warrior without a single doubt in your mind to being sick, helpless, and dependent, it better change your outlook or you haven’t learned your lesson.
I learned mine. Period.
I didn’t just want to rebound because of my fighting career. My son Turk was getting bigger and stronger every day, and I wanted him and my daughter, Mya, to grow up with a healthy father they could do things with. Rena was pregnant with our son Duke. I was motivated for a lot of reasons, but the most important reason I wanted to get back to being the “Brock Lesnar” that I knew was becuase my wife and children deserve the best.
UFC asked me to attend the Carwin vs. Mir fight so we could promote the Title Unification fight, which ended up being scheduled for July 3 in Las Vegas. I knew Dana and Lorenzo were happy, because either Carwin was going to knock Frank out and go to 12–0, so they could promote the Return of Brock Lesnar against this undefeated Knockout King, or Frank Mir would get lucky again, and we’d go for three, the big rubber match between me and Frankie.
Carwin knocked out Frank in the first round, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Frank Mir was so obsessed