Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [9]
When I was throwing 280-pound heavyweights around the mat, the U of M wrestling program was getting some big publicity, and it was all centered around me. Here I was: tall, blond, and chiseled. I was tossing opponents like no one had ever seen before at the college level. The media ate it up, and we were packing the house for every match.
People were coming to see me wrestle, and I enjoyed putting on a show for the fans. However, I really could have lived without the media attention. I actually began to hate it.
I found out very quickly that I could manipulate a lot of people and create a lot of interest in upcoming matches based solely on the words that came out of my mouth. But it wasn’t an act, it was just me. I was raised to speak my mind, and I did.
If you look back, you can find a Minneapolis Star-Tribune story from 1999 that reported a comment I made about what I was going to do to Wes Hand, the Iowa Hawkeye heavyweight, and how the U of M was going to steamroll over Iowa. Just because I made that comment, we drew a sellout crowd. The university had never seen this kind of press for the wrestling team. Even back then, people came to see Brock Lesnar.
Instead of just reporting about my wrestling career and maybe even how I might approach my next match, the media got to be really invasive. They asked too damn many questions.
One day, I decided I had enough. I told J I wasn’t going to cooperate with the press anymore. I just wanted to wrestle. Except when I was out there competing, I wanted the press to leave me the hell alone. But instead of getting off my back, the media wanted to talk to me even more.
To this day, the media coverage is the one part of fame that I really don’t enjoy. I love being in front of the audience, but I’ve always hated the “public relations” bullshit.
I try to limit media access and get some personal space, but when I do, it only makes them hungrier. They are like animals. If you feed them once, they always come back for another bite. And another. And another.
That’s why I learned very early on not to give them the whole meal at once. They will always come back, and I have to save something to feed them when they do.
I went to summer school before my senior year at the university, but I also coached at J Robinson’s wrestling camps to make a few bucks. I was about to start my senior year when word came down that there were now only ten scholarships available for wrestling. Ten scholarships meant that if the program wanted to add more wrestlers, it would have to divide full scholarships into partials, or that some wrestlers would be on their own. There just weren’t enough scholarships to go around.
You guessed it. Next thing I know, I’m being told the university is cutting what little of a scholarship I had so they can give it to another guy. I was really pissed. I’m bringing in fans and dollars to the program, but after four years of working my ass off, I am stuck with a pile of student loans. That pissed me off almost as much as losing to Neal my junior year. The whole situation still chaps my ass.
I was on my own again. This time, though, I was a senior, and I knew it was my last chance.
I just said, “Screw it,” and went undefeated until a week before the Big Ten tournament at the end of the season.
It was me against Wes Hand from the University of Iowa. Wes and I had wrestled a handful of times in my junior year, and he had me figured out. I shot in on him, and he lateral-dropped me right to my back. Fifteen seconds into the match I was down 5–0. In Division I wrestling, that means you’re hosed.
I wasn’t going down that way . . . not to him, not to anyone . . . I kept saying to myself, “You’re Brock Lesnar, no one does this to you . . .” and I battled my way back. But he gets his dancing shoes on and just tries to stay away from me with his five-point lead. I ended up coming back and scoring four straight points, but there just wasn’t enough time, and Wes Hand beat me 5–4.
I don’t have to tell you that I was humiliated—again. I wasn’t five years old anymore, but my mom still