Death Clutch

by Brock Lesnar

  You can think whatever you want about this statement, but I never really chased anyone before. It just wasn’t my style. Here I am, calling her constantly, and I’ll be the first one to admit I’m begging her to talk to me.

  By the time two weeks had gone by, I was beside myself. Rena wouldn’t answer the phone, wouldn’t return my calls. She was sending a message loud and clear. She wasn’t playing hard to get; she was letting me know that she would devote her life to me, but I had to play by the rules with her.

  I wanted her to know how serious I was about building a life together, so I hopped on a plane, and in a last-ditch effort to be with the woman I knew I should spend my life with, I headed down to Orlando.

  I made one stop on the way to the airport. I went to a jewelry store and bought an engagement ring. This was going to be “all or nothing,” and the stakes had never been higher.

  I had been to Rena’s house a bunch of times, but I never wrote down the address. I knew how to get there from the airport, but that didn’t do me a lot of good.

  I got into a taxicab, and right away I’m arguing with this stupid cabbie, because he keeps telling me he needs an address. “Don’t worry about the address!” I kept telling him. “Just turn right, go down six lights . . .”

  I had to force myself to calm down, because I was going to punch this guy’s lights out. Finally, I just got out of his cab, and ended up in another taxi.

  This jackass of a driver pulls the same shit with me as the first guy. “I need an address, I must know where I am going!” Well, I’m trying to tell the guy where he’s going. “You go down this road, turn right …”

  I ended up getting out of that cab, too. I was running out of patience. I just wanted to get to Rena’s house, see the woman I love, and get her to marry me. I can’t even get there, because these damned taxi drivers are all assholes!

  So I get into the third taxi of the day, and I tell the guy, “Listen, I’m having a bad day. I just need to go home. I don’t even know my own address. I just know how to get there. Please, just take me where I want to go, okay?”

  The taxi driver was either laughing at me, or scared out of his mind. Either way, he says to me, “Just guide me along.”

  I was so happy to hear him say that.

  Of course, it’s not over yet.

  Rena lived in a gated community, and wouldn’t you know it, the gate is closed when we get there. So I’m sitting there for over half an hour with the taxi driver, trying to figure out a way in, when lo and behold, another car pulls up. We went right in behind it, and after all this trouble, I finally get to Rena’s house.

  I was so ready to see her. I rang the doorbell. I’m standing there, preparing myself for whatever reaction she has when she opens that door. If she’s happy to see me, I’m scooping her up in my arms. If she’s pissed, I know I have to make good on my stupid mistakes. So, what’s it going to be?

  Well, I didn’t find out right away, because Rena wasn’t home. I’m standing there ringing the doorbell, and I know someone is going to notice me standing in front of her house and call the cops.

  I can’t just break down the door, because she has all this security. Plus, it would probably piss her off. So, I decide to try to get in from the back of the house. Here’s this three-hundred-pound gorilla jumping the fence into the backyard, and it’s not like I’m inconspicuous. I’m just hoping to God that maybe she left the window open or something like that. Of course, she didn’t. Everything is all locked up.

  I saw a neighbor standing by his garage, and I knew he had seen me around with Rena enough to know we were a couple. That was a lucky break for me, because the guy never got suspicious. I told him I was working in the backyard and needed a screwdriver. It was the best excuse I could come up with.

  I used the screwdriver he loaned me to get into one of her sliding doors, and of course the alarm goes off as soon as I get into the house. I knew the pass code, so I shut off the alarm, and now I’m inside. I returned the screwdriver to the neighbor, brought in my bags, and started waiting. I was sure Rena wasn’t out of town, because it was obvious that the house had been lived in. I figured she would come back, and we’d settle our problems.

  Well, I sat around for a couple of hours, and she still wasn’t home. I started calling her from my cell phone, which was a dumb-ass move because she hadn’t taken my calls in over two weeks. I didn’t want her to know where I was, so I just kept calling her from my cell phone, and not from her landline.

  I’m sitting in her house, and I’m stewing. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I picked up her house phone and dialed her cell. You can probably imagine what must have gone through her mind when she looked at her cell phone and saw her own number pop up on the caller ID.

  She answered the phone, and me just being me, I just said, “Hey, how are you doing?”

  Rena was pissed. “Brock, where are you calling me from?”

  Of course, I was going for broke here, so I said, “Don’t you recognize the number?”

  She couldn’t believe it. “You better not be at my house!”

  I told her, “Well, I’m here, and I’ll be here when you come home, because I’m waiting for you!”

  Just to teach me a lesson, Rena took her own sweet-ass time getting home, making me wait and wait and wait. Once she got home, I knew she was as happy to see me as I was to see her—but I still walked around on pins and needles.

  I ended up spending a week with Rena in Florida. When she took me to the airport, she came inside the terminal with me. It was right there, by the waterfall in the Orlando airport, that I asked her to marry me.

  I don’t think my wife has ever regretted saying yes. I can tell you, I’ve never regretted it for a single moment. We were meant to be together.

  MY NOT-SO-SECRET MEETING WITH VINCE

  I was the last man cut from the Vikings squad. My mission was never to pursue a career in the NFL, but to escape WWE. Once I got cut by the Vikings and left Phoenix, I spent about thirty days doing nothing but hunting and thinking about my future.

  I had no interest in some of the weird offers that were coming in. Tabloid news shows want to pay me for my story? No thanks.

  Stupid meathead movie roles? I think I’ll pass on those, too.

  Autograph-signing appearances in shopping malls? I’m sorry, that’s just not my style. I have never been one to prostitute myself out for the quick buck.

  I needed to find something I could be proud of doing, and enjoy the ride while it lasted. I wanted to do something my parents would approve of, something that would allow me to provide the things for my family that I always envisioned them having.

  I couldn’t figure out which way to turn, and then my lawyer, David Olsen, called me with some interesting news. David had been contacted by New Japan Pro Wrestling, the big group based out of Tokyo and run by Antonio and Simon Inoki. They were thinking about all the hype they could build around a shooter who’d become the youngest WWE champion in history, and were looking to cut a deal right away.

  I had never thought about wrestling in Japan, or anywhere else for that matter, because WWE had me sign that noncompete agreement which said I could only wrestle for Vince, and I thought I was on the shelf until 2010. So, instead of having David get back to the Inokis right away, I told him to contact WWE.

  If I went back to the company, though, I didn’t want it to be like the first time. I wanted to have some control over when and where I worked. I was going to make sure up front that I had time off written into my deal, and I wanted to get paid what I thought I was worth.

  Over the next several months, David went back and forth with the WWE lawyers trying to work out the details. Finally, a one-on-one, supposedly secret, meeting between Vince and me was arranged.

  This part still makes me laugh to this day.

  As soon as I walked into the WWE offices, they h
ad cameras all over me. Before Vince and I even said hello to each other, the front page of their Web site had the headline “Brock Lesnar Meets with WWE!”

  So on one side of the world, I’m walking into Vince McMahon’s office to see if we can patch things up, put everything behind us, and do some business together again. On the other side of the planet, the Inokis were probably reading about my “secret meeting” with Vince, and could have been starting to think they are in a bidding war with WWE.

  By putting our “secret” meeting on the Internet, Vince gave me all the leverage I needed to negotiate with the Inokis. He might as well have put a big red bow on this early Christmas present. The Inokis had put so much thought into bringing me in, it was now a matter of pride for them. They were willing to pay whatever it took to keep me from going back to WWE.

  I didn’t want to have to go all the way to Japan to make a living. If I could have had my way, I would have ended up back in WWE, but on my own terms. I walked into that meeting with Vince to give him first dibs on my services. All he had to do was be reasonable with me. If he wanted me back, he had that opportunity. If he didn’t want me back, then I was just wasting my time so that Vince could look me in the eye and tell me how disappointed he was that I left. It was his decision, and it wasn’t going to take long for me to find out which way the meeting was headed.

  Vince invited John Laurinaitis to join us in the meeting. Laurinaitis had replaced Jim Ross as head of the talent relations department, and Vince wanted him to sit in with us while we talked things out. I’m not one to beat around the bush, so I told Vince . . . right in front of John . . . that we were getting started on the wrong foot.

  “I thought this was going to be mano a mano,” I told Vince. Obviously, he had other ideas.

  “Well, Brock,” Vince said, setting the tone for the entire meeting, “John runs talent relations, and I would be disrespecting him if I asked him to leave this meeting. I’d be excusing him from a meeting that affects his entire department.”

  All I could think of was, “Just get to the part about my deal. I’m not even here ten minutes, and I’m already sour on the experience!”

  Before we could talk about money, Vince and John had to play their little games with me. John started talking about the tattoo on my chest, and actually asked me to take my shirt off.

  Right there. In the middle of a business meeting. And not just any business meeting, either, but one where the people involved were trying to put a lot of bad blood behind them. There were issues that had had a lot of time to work themselves out, but both sides were still hot at each other. We’re trying to find a way to work together again, to make money with each other, and the head of the talent department wants me to take my damned shirt off in the chairman’s office so I can show off my new tattoo?

  Screw that.

  That’s when Vince stakes out his position, and tells me I’ll have to start all over again because I walked out on my first deal. “Start at the bottom, and work your way back up to the top!” he tells me. “That’s the only way this is going to work!”

  Vince wasn’t talking about a push. He was talking payroll. I’d have to come back for a deal worth a lot less than I had been making. The fact that I’d left on top meant nothing. Vince was offering me a rookie deal, and he knew it was a complete insult.

  It didn’t matter that my value was still high, that I put over Eddie Guerrero for the title and Goldberg at WrestleMania. It didn’t matter that I could be back on top in no time at all, or that I could be back drawing Vince big money with the right reintroduction, the right angle, even just the right promo.

  Vince wanted to bully me like he does everyone else, because most people who end up on the outs with Vince McMahon don’t have a pot to piss in. They have to crawl back on their hands and knees, begging for scraps.

  Well, I had a ton of problems and a tattoo that symbolized the sword I felt I had at my throat, but I wasn’t going to let anyone talk to me like I’m a piece of shit. Vince was talking to me like I was some low-life jerk-off who had nowhere else to go.

  What Vince never understood about me is that I am, at heart, still a poor kid from that farm in Webster, South Dakota. Yes, I lived the life of a rock star for a few years in WWE, but I knew I could be happy with my future wife no matter what I did for a living or how much money I made.

  If I had to farm for a living, I’d be one happy, hardworking farmer, married to the woman I love, and satisfied with myself because I never let anyone talk to me the way Vince did in that meeting. He could have had me back, almost one hundred percent on his terms, except with just a little concession about the schedule, and he blew it.

  After I walked out of my “secret” meeting with Vince that day, I headed for the airport. Rena asked me on the phone what had happened, and I told her the meeting went well. I also told her that I had swallowed my pride, and it looked like I was going to go back to work for Vince. But before I made the final decision, I wanted to see the contract his lawyers were supposed to send to David Olsen. When we got Vince’s deal in writing, it still looked to me like a rookie deal, for rookie money, with no more days off than I had before. That was the moment I decided I was going to find out what the Inokis were willing to pay me to wrestle in Japan.

  Brad Rheingans had been working with New Japan for about nineteen years, so I made sure I got him in on the deal. With Brad on my team, I had the perfect person to smarten me up to the Inokis’ way of doing business. I knew going to Japan could be a big score, but I also knew I was going to have to have a good strategy to get that kind of money out of the Inokis.

  I also guessed that Vince McMahon was going to do everything in his power to stop me from making a living.

  BROCK LESNAR VS. WWE

  In January 2005, about nine months after leaving WWE, I went to Japan with Rena and Brad. I wanted to see exactly what opportunities I had waiting for me over there, but I had to be very careful not to do anything that would get me sued by Vince McMahon.

  My lawyers and I decided it was best for me to pay for my own plane ticket, and sit in the front row. Did I know that this would only drive my price up with New Japan? Of course I did. My mission was to see what kind of show they put on, and how I could see myself making a big impact.

  Once I got to Tokyo, the Inokis wanted to get every bit of publicity out of my arrival that they could. It was an interesting game. They were getting press based on me coming over to see their show, and I was becoming more and more valuable because I had not committed to them . . . or even to myself, really . . . that I was going to be a part of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

  When I arrived at the arena, the Inokis kept pushing for more and more. They wanted to get as much out of me as they could. They asked if they could introduce me to the crowd. I didn’t have one of my lawyers with me, but how could being introduced to the crowd hurt? I wasn’t getting paid to be there. Yes, I was playing my cards, driving up my price, seeing what buzz I could manufacture before having to make some tough decisions. I’m in Tokyo. I’m not wrestling. I’m not performing. I’m sitting in the crowd, and I am going to be introduced as a celebrity in attendance.

  The Inokis suggested that I walk down the big entrance ramp into the arena so the crowd could see me come in, and then be seated. They told me this is what they would do with any big celebrity guest.

  The news hit the Internet within a matter of minutes. “Brock Lesnar Introduced at New Japan Show.”

  And then all hell broke loose.

  WWE’s lawyers were making all kinds of noise about my trip. Vince didn’t want me having anything to do with any other wrestling organization, and the lawyers were making threats about enforcing my noncompete agreement and suing New Japan, too.

  Vince didn’t want me back unless I agreed to go right back to life on the road, with no breaks. That’s what drove me away the first time.

  But now, i
f I returned to WWE, I’d have to try to survive that schedule, and not even for the pay I had worked my ass off for that company to earn. No, Vince wanted me to come in and work that brutal, killer schedule for little to no money at all.

  WWE’S lawyers were threatening to sue me if I even thought about working for any other wrestling company, anywhere in the world, in any capacity. The sword was at my throat. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not one to back down from a fight. I wanted to work, and Vince was telling me I couldn’t.

  My lawyers were telling me that the noncompete agreement was unenforceable, for far too many reasons than I will bore you with here. You can’t keep a human being from earning a living, and that’s exactly the prison Vince McMahon and his team of attorneys was forcing me to live in. If I decided to work for New Japan, I could expect to get sued by WWE. If I wrestled a damn polar bear on the North Pole, WWE would sue me, if for no other reason than because they could. They love to bully people around that way.

  This was a fight, so I decided to strike first.

  I filed a lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment and asked the federal court in Connecticut to declare my noncompete clause illegal.

  Anyone who knows Vince will tell you he loves a good fight, and he wasn’t going to back down from this one. His lawyers countersued me for breach of contract, and wanted me to pay for all the damage I had caused WWE by leaving the company. They wanted me to pay for all their legal fees (I had enough of my own legal fees to pay, thank you) and asked the judge to declare the noncompete agreement to be binding. They wanted to force me to sit out the prime of my career, all the way until 2010, or go back to work for WWE.

  Vince loves to tell everyone how much he hates managers, agents, and especially lawyers, but he plays the attorney game better than anyone. I had to pay my lawyers in Minnesota, and also a law firm on the East Coast that was licensed in the state of Connecticut. It looked to me like WWE’s strategy was to make me go broke. Request more documents. Another extension of time. Another request for more paperwork. If they could spend me into a hole, I’d have to drop my lawsuit and come back on my hands and my knees, begging for forgiveness.