The second part of Brock Lesnar’s sit down interview with Paul Heyman has been posted at HeymanHustle.com, and he further opens up about his motivations for stepping back into the Octagon at UFC 200.
Lesnar’s opportunity to come back to the UFC at all is one that few if any others would get, and that’s something in which he takes pride. At the same time, he says this return is entirely a selfish endeavor.
“I don’t think I have anything to prove at all,” he said. “I’ve been an athlete; I’ve accomplished a lot of great things. A lot of great things. I feel very fortunate that I’m 38 years old, I work for the WWE, and I can step foot back into the Octagon again for the UFC. How many people can do that? I’m one in a million. How many people can pull that off? One in a million. And you’re looking at him.
“I’m not here to compare myself to anybody else,” he continued. “I’m not here to prove anything. If there’s anything for me out of this… somewhere deep down in my soul do I want to extinguish some bad feelings or the last two times I had in the Octagon [which] weren’t my favorite? I think as an athlete everybody goes through that, but unfortunately for me I literally feel like I got beat by diverticulitis. My number one objective is to get in and prove it to myself. I’m not proving it to anybody else.
“I’m not doing this for fans. If there are fans [who] are excited that I’m doing this? Great. But I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing this for me. If by chance two million people want to tune in for me to enjoy myself on July 9, so be it. That’s great, that’s really good, and I appreciate that, but I’m not gonna change. This is all about me, I’m sorry (laughs). This is all about me. And why should it be about anybody else? This is about me and what I want to do. I’m not faking it.”
Penick’s Analysis: Lesnar’s earned the right to take an opportunity like this because of the popularity he’s amassed throughout his time as an athlete. That star power opens doors closed to others, and that this is unabashedly about proving something to himself isn’t surprising at all. He had unfinished business because of a disease over which he had no control, and now he gets a chance to find out if he can compete otherwise. Whether he’s successful or not come July 9 is somewhat irrelevant, because he’s going to get some type of closure to things if he wins or loses (or in the case of a win perhaps it reignites his spark to continue competing).
[Brock Lesnar art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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He is over-rated. He gets payed a few million dollars a year (he is the 2nd highest paid wrestler on the roster, behind only John Cena) to wrestle 4 or 5 times a year. Now he wants to get few hundred grand more for 1 UFC fight. Greedy.
Get paid while you can.