Brock Lesnar has said he is retired, ending the uncertainty that has followed him since WrestleMania 42.
Speaking on the Pat McAfee Show, Lesnar addressed his future directly for the first time since losing to Oba Femi inside Hell in a Cell in the main event of SummerSlam night one on Saturday.
“I am retired and I wanted to say a big thank you to everybody. Saturday was a very emotional day for me. When Oba Femi slammed me at WrestleMania, I was like, ‘I can’t do this again. I think I’m done.'”
The WrestleMania he refers to is not his last match. Femi beat him on April 19 at Allegiant Stadium, after which Lesnar left his gloves and boots in the middle of the ring and embraced Paul Heyman in a scene widely read as a retirement. He came back weeks later, attacked Femi on Raw and beat him at Clash in Italy, which set up Saturday’s decider. That is the match that ended his career.
WWE has been signaling the same thing since. Lesnar was moved to the alumni section of the company’s website after the show, and WWE posted a tribute video package to Instagram. Roman Reigns shared his own tribute on Tuesday, thanking Lesnar and calling him one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
On Monday’s Raw, Femi asked Heyman to pass on his thanks for the trilogy and for what Lesnar said after the match, and told him the Beast can finally rest. Lesnar had come back to the ring on Saturday, raised Femi’s hand and told the crowd that Femi is the future and he is the past.
Speaking to ESPN before the event, Paul Levesque said he had no idea whether it would be Lesnar’s last match and that the decision was entirely his.
Lesnar signed with WWE in 2000, left in 2004 for the NFL and then UFC, returned in 2012, stepped away in 2020 and came back in 2021. Saturday was his tenth SummerSlam main event, a company record, and it took place in the state he is billed from. He turned 49 in July.
He is the only man to have won the NCAA Division I heavyweight title, the UFC Heavyweight Championship, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship.
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