Death Clutch (13 page)

ROAD TO REDEMPTION

U
FC 100
was scheduled for July 11, 2009, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, and my fight with Frank Mir for the undisputed title was the main event. I kept dreaming about what was going to happen in that fight, and I knew I was going to pull that golden horseshoe right out of Frank's ass and beat him over the head with it.

Frank went around bragging about how he had beaten me, which was one thing. But now he was walking around like it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to beat me again, and that he was already a champion. He's walking around with a fake title belt, and he thinks it carries the same meaning as the real title? Frank was lucky to get a fight with Big Nog for the fake title when Nog was sick as hell.

Frank was talking about how my punches felt like the ones his little sister would land after jumping on his back when they were kids. Really? I had made hamburger meat out of his face during the eighty-five seconds I dominated our first fight, and now he's going to talk about me like I'm some bum? Frank was so arrogant, and it made me just want to punch him in the face so hard that I'd knock his head clean off his shoulders.

Even now, just thinking about him makes me want to hand a beating to Frank Mir again. And again. And again.

When I had to do the photo shoot with Frank for the very first
UFC Magazine,
I kept looking at him and asking myself, “How could I have given this guy a win? How could I let someone like THAT get their hand raised against ME?”

As soon as we started training camp, we put the pieces together on what it would take to beat Frank. It was easy to come up with a game plan because I knew in my mind that I had him beat the first time. I just had to control Frank, and it was obvious to me and my trainers that if I just got my hands on him, I could control him easily.

I wanted this fight bad, not just because I wanted to become the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion, but because I wanted the satisfaction of kicking Frank's ass. I wanted to beat him at his own game. I hated the fact that Frank was running his big fat mouth about how he was a great jujitsu expert, and about how he showed me the difference between jujitsu and wrestling,
blah blah blah
.

Frank claimed he was this great jujitsu black belt. What a crock of shit. Hey, let's face facts . . . when it comes to jujitsu, the truth is that a black belt doesn't mean a damn thing to me. Black-belt-schmack-belt. I'm a white belt, but I beat a black belt at his own game. Shouldn't that make me a black belt?

Frank submitted me because I made a stupid mistake, and all of a sudden he's the world's greatest submission artist. Sorry, everyone, but guys like Frank get awarded black belts based on how many hours they spend in the dojo. The belts come from the guys' own instructors. They don't have to beat anyone in a real fight in order to win them.

My coach didn't give me the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Title. I earned it. My training staff didn't award me the UFC Championship either. I earned both by kicking someone's ass for the honor of being champion. I deserved to be recognized as the best by beating someone man-to-man, in the spirit of competition. Frank got his black belt because he paid the instructor a lot of money over the years and put in his time. Big deal.

A lot of people talk about how I turned my back on Frank after the referee gave us our instructions in the middle of the Octagon. I guess we were supposed to touch gloves. I wasn't in the mood to touch gloves with Frank Mir. I had no desire to be respectful toward him. After all the shit he said about me, it was time for him to back it up. Hey, I said a lot of shit about him, too, and I was ready to back it up the moment the referee said it was legal for me to do so.

While we're on the subject of touching gloves and all that pageantry, let's get something straight. There are a lot of rules and regulations in the UFC, but touching gloves is not one of them. No state athletic commission mandates that fighters must touch gloves before they fight. So, in my mind, I'M NOT OBLIGATED TO TOUCH GLOVES OR HAVE A LICK OF RESPECT FOR MY OPPONENT, either before or after a fight. This is not a bunch of neighborhood kids all playing around on a bright sunny day in the backyard. This is a sport. At its very core, it's a fight.

I did exactly what I planned on doing in that fight. I took Frank down, controlled him, and hit him in the head repeatedly, and with violent intent. I scrambled his brains before the fight was stopped in the second round. I wish the referee would have let the fight go on a few seconds longer so I could have gotten the satisfaction of punching Frank in the face a few more times.

That win was very emotional for me. I had waited seventeen long months to shut Frank's mouth, and it felt so good when I finally did it.

So there I am, in the Octagon, pumped full of adrenaline from the fight, crowd screaming, lights and cameras in my face, Frank in the corner with his face all messed up, and Joe Rogan sticks a microphone in front of me and asks, “Hey, Brock, how does it feel?”

How does it feel?

I've been waiting for seventeen months to punch this overhyped asshole Frank Mir in the face, use my wrestling skills to control his body, manhandle him like a bitch. I've been waiting seventeen months to prove to myself, the public, God, and everyone else who cares or doesn't care, that this guy doesn't measure up to Brock Lesnar. I've been waiting seventeen months to pull that golden horseshoe out of Frank's ass and beat him over the head with it.

That's when it all came out. All of the emotion. All of the pent-up anger.

First, I flipped off the audience with both hands, because they were still booing me. I didn't even think about it. I just did it. A little WWE left in me? A little bit of the heel wrestler? Maybe. Then Mir stumbled over to me. I was so amped up from the win, I failed to see that Frank was actually coming over to shake my hand. All I could think of was that I got the last punch in, and now I'm going to get in the last word. So I went nose-to-nose with him, got right back up in his busted face.

That's when I went on my tirade.

I don't know why, but I happened to look down and see the Bud Light logo on the Octagon floor, and it set me off. Bud Light was a UFC sponsor, and they had a lot of their people at the fight. But they weren't a Brock Lesnar sponsor, so I said I was going to celebrate by drinking “Coors Light, because Bud Light won't pay me anything.” I also threw in “I might even get on top of my wife tonight.”

Hey, Joe Rogan asked me how it feels.

Well, Joe, that's how it feels.

Dana wasn't happy. UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta wasn't happy. My lawyers, who had been chased down the hall by Dana and Lorenzo and given a tongue-lashing, weren't happy. My own sponsors, sitting a few feet away, weren't happy. Hey, if it matters to you, I was pretty happy. Well, at least I was happy for a little while.

What was I supposed to say? “Congratulations to Frank Mir for a great fight”?

Are you kidding me? And besides, there is more to the story. I don't know how much trouble I'm going to cause by revealing any of this, but it's the truth, and that's why I'm telling this story in my book. If anyone has a different version, write your own damn book and tell the world how you see it!

About a month before
UFC 100,
Dana and Lorenzo flew to Minnesota to negotiate a new contract with me. My lawyers and I took them on a quick tour of the DeathClutch gym, then we went to a local resort to sit down and talk.

In addition to the contract, we discussed bigger sponsorship possibilities. I thought the UFC people were going to set something up for me before
UFC 100
, but we never heard anything about it again.

I don't know if I was supposed to be pissed about that, or if it's just one of those things. I'm not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. I'm also not someone who likes to be played, so the Bud Light thing was somewhere in the back of my mind during the fight with Frank Mir, and when I saw that logo on the Octagon floor, the trigger was tripped. Hey, I was on top of the world, looking down. And when I looked down, I saw that big Bud Light logo, and all that went through my mind was how much money UFC was making on that sponsorship, and how much I wasn't.

Everyone got a taste of Brock Lesnar that night. Unfiltered. I said what was on my mind. No script. No bullshit. Some liked what they heard, others didn't. I don't care.

Before the press conference that night, Dana took me into a bathroom and let me know what was on his mind. I said later that night that it was a “whip-the-dog session,” and believe me, it was. Dana was trying to run a business where we could all make a lot of money together. He explained that pissing off major sponsors was not the way to do it. And just so I'm honest as hell here in my own book about it, let me say that he didn't phrase his explanation too nicely. He was upset with me, and the truth is, he had every right to be.

That was probably the quickest trip ever from top of the world to doghouse. By the time we worked our way from the basement of the arena up to the press conference, I had settled down, and the professional side of me took over (if there is one). I had found a Bud Light keg at one of the concession stands on the way up, and I picked it up and was going to carry it in on my shoulder, but Dana saw what I was doing and nixed that idea. I still think it would have been pretty funny. Just imagine the press we would have gotten if I had walked into the press conference with a Bud Light keg on my shoulder.

My lawyers put a Bud Light bottle in my hand before I walked into the press conference room, and I put it front and center by my microphone when I sat down to face the media. They all got a few good laughs out of that.

Because I'm a “real man of genius,” I also apologized to Bud Light. I told them, “I'm not biased. I'll drink any beer.”

I
'll be the first to admit, I was unprofessional that night. But despite all of the fallout from my outburst, I was as happy as I have ever been in my whole life. I had found a career that excited me, but that also allowed me to be with my family. I was married to the woman I loved and knew I'd happily spend the rest of my life with. Rena had just given birth to our son Turk, a healthy baby boy. I was making good money. I was supporting my family like I always wanted, and there wasn't anything we needed that we didn't have.

Life wasn't just good, it was great. This was the greatest time in my life.

And then I almost died.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

G
oing into UFC 100, I was like a grumpy bear with a sore ass. Fight week is miserable, because I'm just sitting around, waiting to get into a fight with someone. The training is over. The work, for the most part, is done. I get phone calls from friends, asking “what's up?” Nothing's up. I'm just sitting around, waiting to step into a cage in front of millions of people, and either kick someone's ass or get embarrassed by my opponent. That's it.

The week of a fight is the longest week on the calendar for me. I spend my time trying to think about anything except what's on everyone's mind . . . THE FIGHT. There's nothing left to do, except drive yourself crazy waiting for that Saturday night, when you go to the arena and finally get to actually do what you've just spent months and months training for. The hay, as they say, is in the barn. But I have to go to press conferences and talk about the fight. I have to go to weigh-ins and talk about the fight. Reporters ask me the same questions over and over. My face is everywhere. I can't get away from it. Everywhere I look, everyone I talk to, it's always there.

I went to the movies eight times during the week of
UFC 100
. Matinees, nighttime movies, anything to escape the hype for a couple of hours. It's like the calm before the storm.

Marty Morgan is my head trainer because he's been around me for years. Marty understands me, which means he knows when to talk to me about the fight, and when to just leave me alone with my own thoughts. He knows when I need to be with my training partners, and he knows when I shouldn't have anyone around me. When another person knows you inside and out like that, he can't be replaced. He's the key, the glue that holds everything together.

Thank God my wife was mature enough to understand what I needed to do. She went through the last part of her pregnancy practically alone while I trained. But she understood, and she couldn't have been more supportive.

Coming out of
UFC 100
was a totally different deal. We were all on an emotional high. Even though I was the happiest I had ever been, I had to clear my head. I had to get out of fight mode, and back into the mind-set of just being a husband, and being “Daddy” to my kids.

That's the part people need to understand. Going into a fight, I'm Brock Lesnar, UFC champion, professional mixed martial artist. Pro fighter. But the minute the main event is over, I only want to spend time with my wife and kids and the rest of my family.

As soon as the post-fight press conference for
UFC 100
was over, we flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and spent a week hiding out in the woods. We went to Yellowstone. I got to know my new son.

When we got back to civilization, I got word that Dana wanted me to defend the title against Shane Carwin.

I took the fight. Why? Because I've never turned down a fight with anyone the UFC has offered. You want me to fight Shane Carwin? Then I'll fight Shane Carwin. I'll fight Shane Carwin, and I'll defend my title against him the same way I plan on doing with every other top challenger you put against me.

But when I started training for the fight with Shane, I could feel that something was wrong. I was exhausted all the time. Tired. Worn out. No energy.

There were days when I would get home from training, and I literally could not get off the couch. I had been battling some stomach problems for a while, but I didn't think too much of them and just went on. That was a big mistake. I should have listened to my body.

Now I had a real problem. My health was getting worse by the day, and the fight was getting closer. I had to make a decision. I wanted to be fair to the UFC, because they were already promoting the fight. But I knew there was no way I could continue training camp and be in any kind of shape to fight. Something was wrong with me. Very wrong.

I'm not a quitter, so postponing the fight against Shane Carwin was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. I talked it over with my wife, Marty, and my lawyers, and we all agreed I had no choice. I was sick, and I needed to take care of myself.

I went to the local doctor, and was diagnosed with mononucleosis. It made sense to me at the time. Training camp can wear you down. My immune system was fatigued. I was susceptible to something like mono; it happens to fighters all the time. This time, it was happening to me. Or so I thought.

I wasn't happy about letting so many people down, and I really wasn't happy about being sick, so I took my family on a trip to Canada. I figured we could spend some time in the wilderness, and I could rest and get healthy again.

Not long after we got to western Manitoba, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst pain I have ever experienced. I never felt like that before. I was sweating buckets, just drenching the sheets, and I was delirious. I didn't even know where I was. I remember seeing Rena looking at me, and then I fell back asleep.

I woke up a short time after that, and told Rena I needed to get to a hospital.

Fast.

I couldn't stand up on my own. That says something right there, doesn't it? Brock Lesnar. The ultimate fighting champion. You know, Baddest Dude on the Planet. And I couldn't even stand up. Couldn't help myself. Couldn't get from the bed to the car to save my own life.

My brother Chad was with us, and he is big enough to carry me to the car. He loaded me in, and we took off like crazy men. But as fast as he was driving, I still felt like punching him in the face because it wasn't fast enough. Poor Chad. He could have put both feet on the gas pedal and redlined the tachometer all the way, and it still wasn't fast enough for me.

I was in so much pain, and I wanted help, but we were in the middle of nowhere. It may sound funny to you, but the Manitoba prairie is at least two hours from the nearest town of any size. The speedometer is only reading ninety-nine miles per hour, and I'm thinking of how I can fight through the pain and beat up my brother because he's driving at a snail's pace. At least that's how it felt to me.

We got to a hospital in a town called Brandon, and they put me on morphine right away. That took care of the immediate pain, but I still didn't know what was wrong with me.

After I stabilized a bit, the doctors took an X-ray of my stomach, but that doesn't show tissue, and doesn't give you a full view of what's going on. The doctors knew it, and wanted to do a CT scan, but they only had one machine at the hospital, and it was broken. They told me it would be fixed at 11
A.M.
the following morning.

The morphine was giving me a terrible migraine. Eight hours come and go, and they still don't have the CT machine fixed. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The worst part about it for me was the total lack of control.

You can call it ego, or cockiness, or arrogance, or anything else you want, but I'm used to being in control. Some people were meant to lead, others were meant to follow. I was born to take charge. It's not only what I do, it's who I am.

All morphined up in that hospital, I was helpless, and I was hating every second of it. Rena, who, unbeknownst to us, was pregnant with my third child, our second son, was sitting next to my hospital bed, watching the hours go by. She had never seen me like this. She was scared, but she was ready to spring into action the moment we made a game plan.

More time went by. Still no new part for the machine. My condition was getting worse. I didn't know if I was dying, but it sure felt like I was.

The hospital gave me more morphine, and started me on chicken broth. They wanted to get something inside me, some nourishment, but my body rejected the chicken broth and I started throwing up everywhere. I may have been all zoned out on morphine, but I could tell something was seriously wrong with me. When your body can't even handle chicken broth, you're in big trouble, but that was secondary to the fact that I had no clue what was wrong, since they couldn't get a picture of my stomach. The doctor didn't know either. He was waiting on the part for the machine. Time was slipping away, and I was wondering if I would ever make it out of that hospital alive.

I put my faith in the doctors at that hospital. I shouldn't have. It almost cost me my career. It almost cost me my life.

Another day goes by, and I'm still going downhill. I've been in the hospital all weekend, and they still don't have a CT scan. They keep telling me the part for the machine is coming, and that I just need to wait a little longer.

I'm more than a little concerned. How much longer is this going to take? Can you please be a little more precise than “We're waiting on the part” or “It'll be here very soon”? What's very soon? How much time do I have until you're going to need to cut me open just to keep me alive?

When I told Rena I was going to die waiting for them to fix the CT machine, we both knew what we had to do. I said, “Let's get the hell out of here.” She was happy to hear me say this because she was thinking the same thing.

I called one of the nurses in and asked for more pain medication. What I didn't tell her is that I needed the pain medication because I was planning to bolt, and had a long drive ahead of me. Rena and I intended to get in the car and head for the U.S. border just as fast as we could go so I could get myself into a real hospital.

Before we left, however, we needed a plan. Bismarck, North Dakota, was the closest U.S. city, so I called Kim Sabot. His son Jesse had been my roommate in Bismarck State College. Kim had dealt with his own health issues over a long period of time, and he assured us that the hospital in Bismarck could take care of me.

Destination? Bismarck!

Rena wheeled me out of the Canadian hospital, got me into the passenger seat, and we were off. Like Chad, she was only driving ninety-nine miles an hour, which made me bat-shit crazy. The damn vehicle had a governor on it. It wouldn't go any faster.

It is a four-hour car ride to Bismarck from the Canadian hospital I was in, and the pain on that drive was unbearable. I have a high threshold for pain, higher than most guys, and I couldn't deal with it. It felt like I had taken a shotgun blast to the stomach, and then someone poured in some salt and Tabasco and stirred it all up with a nasty pitchfork.

Rena got me to Bismarck, and we could tell the people in the hospital were on point. Within twenty minutes, I was already getting a CT scan and antibodies. A few minutes later, the doctors diagnosed me with diverticulitis. I was told I had a hole in my stomach. I was being poisoned from the inside with my own body waste. No wonder I felt like death.

The Bismarck doctors knew who I was, and what I did for a living. That means they knew that cutting me open would end my career, and they did not want to do that if it could be avoided. The doctors made a decision.

They said I had eight hours. If the medication appeared to be working on the infection, they would give me some more time. If it wasn't working, they would be forced to recommend immediate surgery to remove a large chunk of my colon.

I spent the next seven hours in the hospital with a 104.3-degree fever. The doctors started discussing the surgery. It was becoming a life-or-death situation.

With fifteen minutes left to go, my fever finally broke. I didn't have to have the radical surgery. I got a reprieve.

If the doctor who made the decision to wait hadn't been on duty that day when I arrived, I would have been using a colostomy bag for several months, and would have had to undergo several surgeries. He made a brilliant decision. He and his twenty-eight years of GI experience saved my life . . . he gave me a chance to have a good life with my wife and children. I'll never forget that. Thank you, Dr. Bruderer. I will forever remember you for what you did for me and my family.

Although I had avoided immediate surgery, it didn't change the fact that I still had a hole in my stomach, and that it was slowly killing me. I was dying.

I spent the next eleven days in the hospital with no food or liquids. All I had was an IV solution and a ton of pain medication. I was living in a fog.

When I looked around, all I saw was my IV tubes and my wife sitting by my bedside. Rena tells me my lawyers were on the phone with her constantly, but I didn't know that. She tells me they had been in touch with Dana White, who offered to have a UFC helicopter take me to the Mayo Clinic. She tells me Marty was on his way. I didn't know that either. How could I know anything? I was so medicated I couldn't stay awake, and when I was awake, all I could think of was that I was dying.

One time when I woke up, I got ahold of my cell phone, and I started calling everyone . . . my managers, attorneys, trainers, you name it . . . and I fired all of them. If your number was on my cell phone, I either quit working with you or fired you.

Once I came to, I put those relationships back together. I was an ornery cuss when I was sick, and every now and then I have a good laugh about what I did from my hospital bed. It's funny, but not a lot of people on the other end of those phone calls have a sense of humor about it, even to this day. Oh well. I hope they get over it somehow. I'll admit, I was in a pretty bad mood, and had no idea what I was doing during most of those calls.

Rena just kept telling me to focus on positive thoughts, but while I was there in that hospital bed, I decided to retire. One of the people I called on the phone was Dana White. He's the one guy who laughs about the calls from me when I was in the hospital. That's just Dana's personality. I like that about him, because I'm sure he got an earful from me that week and a half I was laid up. I do remember telling Dana I was retiring. We both laugh about that conversation now. Not so much then. But certainly now.

I wanted to live. I wanted to get out of the hospital, and be with my family. Everything else was secondary to me. I was going to be a farmer. No kidding. Everyone still asks me if I was scared about losing my UFC career, never having a chance to see my title reign the whole way through. I wasn't that concerned about it, because when I was in that hospital bed, I had already resigned myself to the notion of being Farmer Brock.