Brock Lesnar appeared to close the book on his in-ring career at WrestleMania 43, symbolically laying down his gloves and boots after his match to signify his retirement from professional wrestling.
Lesnar opened the second night of WrestleMania 43 in a losing effort against Oba Femi, then removed his gloves and shoes, left them in the middle of the ring, and embraced longtime ally Paul Heyman. Daniel Cormier was in attendance and was seen watching as Lesnar left his gear behind.
As a former UFC heavyweight champion, Lesnar once detailed how he forced his way into the promotion after fighting under the K-1 banner. “Dana White wanted nothing to do with me,” Lesnar said. “He wouldn’t return my phone calls. What happened was I fought at the L.A. Coliseum for K-1 Dynamite and then I wanted to get into the big leagues and there’s only one big league at the time and it was the UFC. My team reached out and wanted to do something with the UFC. This is the stuff you have to do. I said screw it, I bought four nosebleed tickets to the MGM [Grand Garden Arena], Randy Couture was headlining against Gabriel Gonzaga for the heavyweight championship.”
“I sat there in the stands through the entire event and as soon as Randy won that fight, I scaled the security and ran to the octagon, I grabbed Dana and I introduced myself — ‘I’m Brock Lesnar.’ We went to the back and he said ‘well listen, I’ll give you a shot.’ He gave me a one-fight deal. I said take a gamble on me.”
Lesnar went on to defeat Randy Couture to become UFC heavyweight champion nine months after his UFC debut, before returning to WWE in 2012 and continuing to appear periodically up through WrestleMania 43.
