Brock Lesnar is an American professional wrestler, former mixed martial artist, and football player. Currently signed to WWE, the World Wrestling Entertainment Inc, he performs on the Raw brand, a brand of U.S. professional wrestling that was first established in 2002.
After being a successful amateur wrestler at Bismarck State College, he signed with WWE in 2000. He was a three-time OVW Southern Tag Team Champion, won the WWE Championship in 2002, and was the youngest champion in the title's history.
He left WWE to pursue a career in the National Football League, where he was briefly on the Minnesota Vikings. He tried MMA fighting in 2006, signing with Hero's, a Japanese mixed martial arts promotion.
With such a decorated career that is far from over, you might think that is all to the story here. Right? Wrong. There is a lot more to Brock Lesnar than meets the eye, especially considering he survived a life-changing accident that altered his path.
Although not as dangerous as a motorsport wreck, Brock still underwent a traumatic incident that he was lucky to walk away from. Let's not forget the other celebrities who have sadly lost their lives in deadly car accidents.
Motorcycle Accident Details
Lesnar was riding his motorcycle on Sunday around 6pm, on April 20, 2004. He was struck by a minivan that pulled out in front of him, throwing him off his bike.
Doctors at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota had to remove the glass from Lesnar's forehead and stitch him up. He obviously is used to getting hurt and injured in the ring and on the football field, but this crash was multiple injuries all at once, which made it scarier - mentally.
He gets tackled on the football field and hit over the head with a chair in the wrestling ring, but he wasn't expecting this hit. So it comes as no surprise that it was harder this time.
Football Training Camp
This accident happened shortly before his tryout, but he still pushed through and attended the training camp for 8 weeks with all of these injuries. Even with his injuries, he decided to continue in his tryout for the Minnesota Vikings NFL Franchise.
His injuries, excluding the stitched-up forehead, included a broken jaw, broken left hand, severely bruised pelvis, and seriously pulled groin. Any one of these injuries alone is enough to leave someone in bed for a few days, if not a few weeks. Not Brock Lesnar.
Trajectory Altered
Although he powered through and attended the training camp anyways, the injuries may have hindered him from dominating as he might have if he was fully healthy. If he played in the Minnesota training camp as he could have, then who knows. He might have had a long and fulfilling career with the NFL instead of WWE.
Since he was cut from the Vikings after the training camp, he returned to professional wrestling and signed with Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2005. He won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his first match with his new club. After a dispute about his contract, he wrestled as the IGWP Heavyweight Champion in the Inoki Genome Federation.
Maybe his NFL career being cut short influenced him to pursue his other passion - mixed martial arts. After his one season back in the Japanese league, he pursued his MMA Career with Hero's in 2007.