(Photo courtesy of Maxim.)
“I bet you I’ve taken over 60 steroid tests. In college I had 15 random drug tests in two years. I’ve taken drug tests for the NFL, the WWE, the UFC. I must be pretty good at masking steroids. God gave me this body: Are you jealous of it or what? Give me a break. I got the genetics of — not to get into racism or anything — but I’m built like a black man…It’s all genetics. I wouldn’t say we’re all created equal. That’s just to make the other guys feel good who don’t have what you’ve got.”
So says UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in a new Maxim magazine profile, discussing the allegations of steroid use that have followed him from the WWE to the Octagon. For an entertaining recap of Brock’s life and career, read the rest of the article here. Or you could just read the two best parts after the jump…
*****
His 56-inch chest looks like it was made to be draped with shackles; it’s the torso of a man who, in another time, might have led a galley slaves’ rebellion. His slit-eyed, crew-cut head is like a boulder you might find lying around Easter Island. He seems simultaneously mythological, like a golem, and cartoonish, like the Thing.
Lesnar tunes in to an all-metal station on the radio, and a P.O.D. track begins churning through the room. A few warmup exercises later, he and [long-suffering training partner Chris] Tuchscherer don gloves and begin sparring. “Forward, forward!” Lesnar yells, but Tuchscherer, a beefy, dopey-sweet blond kid who weighs 265, can’t stop retreating. As Lesnar hammers him with fists the size of cinder blocks, Tuchscherer covers his face. Behind his gloves you can see him wincing in fear — a strange sight in a man so large. He inches tentatively toward Lesnar; all he’s doing, it seems, is trying not to be a pussy. Finally, the inevitable: Lesnar lands a huge, crunching shot to the side of Tuchscherer’s head — and then turns away, suddenly bored. It’s not easy for the baddest man in sports to find a worthy foe.
Meanwhile Tuchscherer leans against the wall, blinking and working his jaw and facial muscles. “I was so dizzy I would have fallen over if I didn’t grab the wall,” he says later. “I had to gather my brain up again.” On that morning, I’m later told, Lesnar was sparring at just 70 percent of his full strength.
*****
An assistant is oiling Lesnar’s body. Gleaming, he looks unreal, Photoshopped; I’m reminded of the strange sense you have when he fights that you’re watching something computer-generated, some kind of CGI monster in a movie, because of his combination of unnatural hugeness and unnatural lightness on his feet…
Approaching him, I’m hit by the cloying scent of the oil smeared all over his torso. We’re talking about Frank Mir when I interrupt to joke, “You smell delicious, by the way.” I do know what I was thinking: There’s something comical about an enormous man who’s basically wearing perfume. But as soon as I utter those words, I realize I’ve fucked up massively. Galactically. You do not make sexually ambiguous quips to a man who grapples intimately with other men for a living.
Lesnar’s eyes narrow. His lips tighten. “What?” he asks. His tone is equal parts malevolence and disgust.
“What is that smell?” I stammer, trying to sound offhand about it.
He’s watching me closely. “Oil,” he sneers.
I brace myself for the most tooth-jarring, eardrum-popping bitch-slap ever administered, but it never comes. When he beats you up, as he did Chris Tuchscherer, or backs you down, as he’s just done me, you cease to exist for Brock Lesnar. He turns toward a photographer. “You want me to look at the camera?” he asks. “Or should I look through it?”
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