For the previous installments of our conversation with Brock Lesnar, click here and here.

Update: The complete audio from this interview is now at the end of the post.

BRIAN D’SOUZA: [When you were sick], maybe you thought a lot about your family, about what you’ve achieved in life…any regrets?
BROCK LESNAR: No, you know, I thought, if this thing is going to take advantage of me, I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me so I could beat it. When you’re laying there, after the fact, you start thinking about your family, and your friends. It wasn’t until afterwards when you’re thinking ‘Man — I really could have died from this stuff,’ when the dust settles, and you start thinking about it.

And on the other side of things, on the business side, there’s a lot invested in you, or a lot of value to you from the UFC. What was their attitude back then and recently, right now [when you pulled out of the Junior dos Santos fight]?
The first thing that came out of Dana White’s mouth was concern for my health. He said, “Don’t even worry about the fight. Let’s get your health taken care of.” That goes to show a lot about the company, and about the person that Dana White is.

Josh Barnett once told me ‘We have a pro wrestling system for MMA.’ But I kind of believe it’s a star system; I believe this based on the estimated pay-per-view buys which suggest — which we both know — you’re the number one draw in the organization by far. Going into the millions of pay-per-view buys where Georges St-Pierre can maybe do 800,000 or 900,000. How do you feel about being the number one guy?
Well, I don’t feel any different other than I’m glad to be in that spot, that opportunity; it’s a lucrative spot to be in, and at the end of the day, I hope that I can get back in the Octagon to keep trying to pursue those numbers.

For part one of our conversation with Brock Lesnar, click here.

BRIAN D’SOUZA: There’s your stage persona, and there’s your own job and family. I understand you didn’t want the media to cut into time when you’re having dinner with your family.
BROCK LESNAR: I really don’t know anybody that does. My time with family is very important to me and in today’s age with the cell phone and the internet, there’s not a lot of privacy left in this world and everybody knows what everyone is doing at any given time and I don’t really care if anyone knows what I’m doing at any given time.

Moving on to your wrestling career, you talk about not having watched — what is it — five minutes of wrestling before you came to professional wrestling. Is that true?
That is true.

So what sports were you drawn to view, to watch, growing up?
Well growing up, we had 2 ½ TV channels that sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. And in the summertime, I very rarely watched any television because we were working. I was outside. To me, if I’m inside, I don’t feel natural. My sons are the same way — they’d rather be outside doing something and I think that that’s a big problem in today’s society where kids are in front of the computer, the television and the [video] game boxes; they don’t get to go outside and experience communication, and nature, and get out and be creative and entertain yourself, and not having to be entertained by technology.

“The bottom line: I don’t talk about my personal life with strangers. This one time, and this one time only. You are invited to join me in my private world for a few hours. Just don’t ever expect another invitation.” – back cover of Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination, and Survival, Brock Lesnar’s autobiography

By Brian J. D’Souza

Harper Collins provided me with an opportunity that comes too infrequently in MMA — a chance to talk to Brock Lesnar one-on-one, to discuss his new book, while he’s in a good mood. The truth about Lesnar? He came from a small town, worked extremely hard, and utilized a wrestling persona to become the number one MMA draw. Does he hate the media? How much money does he make? And what does he think of promoters like Vince McMahon who pull all the strings? Read our three-part interview series with the controversial UFC heavyweight contender and find out…

BRIAN D’SOUZA: Death Clutch is your story, it’s your autobiography, it’s written in conjunction with Paul Heyman. First of all, tell us a little bit about your relationship with Paul, when you first met him?
BROCK LESNAR: I met Paul back in 2001, working for the WWE, and Paul was working as a writer for Vince McMahon, and I met Paul one day, he came up, and introduced himself. The next thing I knew, we were working together, and he was my onscreen manager and we became friends throughout the process, and stayed in contact over the years, and it was a delightful process for him and I to get together and reminisce and put this book together.

So of course, he had a lot of writing experience. I noticed the book is well-written.
Yeah, the main reason I decided to do this with Paul is because I felt comfortable having a conversation with him about all the subjects. Between him, the publisher, and my attorneys, I believe it’s a well-written book.

Can you tell me a little about your relationship with Erik Paulson, one of your trainers?
Erik is a Minnesota guy, and I met Erik through Greg Nelson. Greg was one of the first guys that started training me for Mixed Martial Arts and throughout the process, I was able to meet Erik Paulson; being fellow Minnesotans and Erik having a plethora of knowledge in the sport he’s been a mentor of mine throughout the full process.

I heard a rumor — maybe true, maybe not — that before the Shane Carwin fight you stopped working with him and concentrated on other trainers. Is that true?

(“The fact you would even bring Barthelme into this discussion tells me everything I need to know about your view of so-called postmodern literature, Mir. Seriously, grad school is over, man.”)

We’re still 10 days out from the scheduled release of Brock Lesnar’s autobiography and – if you’re like us – it’s getting hard to wait, since you already expunged your spring reading list by powering through “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and “The Emperor of All Maladies” over the weekend. What can you say? You are a fucking voracious reader. Luckily for you, the fine folks at literary giant Harper Collins have served up a fairly lengthy excerpt from the former UFC heavyweight champion’s upcoming opus “Death Clutch” to keep you sated until the actual publication date.

Some of the middle-aged ladies who work at HC have even been tweeting links to the outtakes from Lesnar’s book – something we bet they never thought they’d be doing when they got into publishing – and so we checked it out. Oddly, we were sort of delighted with what we found. Firstly, it turns out that Lesnar finds a way to dis Frank Mir in the book’s very first paragraph. We read that and started thinking, ‘OK Brock, you have our attention.’ Look for Mir to fire back in his upcoming memoir “Confessions of a Strip Club Bouncer.” After the jump however, Lesnar gets the first word …