Despite UFC 131 Withdrawal, Former Champ Proclaims, “This Isn’t the End of Brock Lesnar” at LinesMaker.com

Despite UFC 131 Withdrawal, Former Champ Proclaims, “This Isn’t the End of Brock Lesnar”

For­mer UFC heavy­weight cham­pion Brock Lesnar is down but insists he’s not out.

One day after a full bat­tery of tests at Minnesota’s highly respected Mayo Clinic con­firmed a sec­ond bat­tle with diver­ti­c­uli­tis, Lesnar on Thurs­day offi­cially with­drew from a planned UFC 131 matchup with Junior Dos Santos.

But while his first case of the intesti­nal infec­tion was con­sid­ered life-threatening, Lesnar insists things are much bet­ter this time around. He’s in no shape to fight, Lesnar admits, but he’s also not prepar­ing to walk away from the sport.

“I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not retir­ing,” Lesnar said on a media call con­firm­ing his diag­no­sis. “This isn’t the end of my fight career. This is some­thing that I believe in my strong faith that there’s a solu­tion to every prob­lem. I just have to find the right solu­tion to fix this problem.”

Lesnar said he first noticed the symp­toms over the past three months or so, includ­ing while he was film­ing “The Ulti­mate Fighter 13.” He began tak­ing antibi­otics in the hopes of clear­ing up the issue, but the inflam­ma­tion remained.

With the pend­ing matchup with Dos San­tos a lit­tle more than four weeks away, Lesnar said he regret­tably made the choice to with­draw from the contest.

“It didn’t allow me to train to my full capa­bil­i­ties,” Lesnar admit­ted. “I was forced to make a deci­sion to go back down to the doc­tor this week to fig­ure out how far this thing was along. What it does is it drains my entire body down. Basi­cally, you’ve got an infec­tion in your stom­ach, and all my resources went to fight this prob­lem instead of rebuild­ing what I tore down in the gym.

“It’s not as seri­ous as last time. It just didn’t allow me to train for the way I needed to train for a No. 1 con­tenders’ bout.”

Lesnar fell ill in the fall of 2009 and was forced to with­draw from his first title defense against Shane Car­win at UFC 106. He was orig­i­nally diag­nosed with mononu­cle­o­sis before addi­tional tests revealed a severe case of the intesti­nal dis­or­der diver­ti­c­uli­tis — a likely result of a diet heavy on meat and light on fiber. He was hos­pi­tal­ized for 11 days and lost 40 pounds, and doubts inten­si­fied about his future as a fighter.

This time around, Lesnar is forced with a deci­sion. He can have surgery on the intestines, remov­ing the offend­ing sec­tions, or he can con­tinue to try to man­age the issue through increased focus on diet. The 33-year-old said he hasn’t yet set a time­line for his deci­sion (or poten­tial return), but it’s a choice he’s not tak­ing lightly.

“I am forced with the deci­sion to either have surgery or deal with this for the rest of my life,” Lesnar said. “A lot of things go through your mind as an ath­lete, espe­cially myself. This is some­thing that has been wear­ing on me for about a month now.

“Dif­fer­ent thoughts come to your mind, but it wouldn’t be fair to myself,nor my fam­ily or the peo­ple I have to get in the octa­gon to per­form in front of. I wouldn’t have been 100 per­cent on June 11 because I’m not there now. I had to make a deci­sion this week to give the UFC enough time, and I have enough respect for them peo­ple to under­stand that lis­ten, I don’t want to jeop­ar­dize my health. My health is No. 1, and my fam­ily is No. 1. It was a hard deci­sion. I’m choked up about it, and there’s noth­ing I can do.”

When Lesnar returned from the 2009 bout with diver­ti­c­uli­tis, he cred­ited a cleaner, health­ier lifestyle for nurs­ing him back to health in a recov­ery he deemed noth­ing short of mirac­u­lous. Lesnar insists he’s main­tained his focus on his diet in the time since, and it’s only served to add to his frustration.

“That’s what’s so frus­trat­ing about this,” Lesnar said. “I’ve been doing all the right things, so I thought. That’s what’s very depress­ing about this, and I feel really, really angry about it.

“I wanted more than any­thing to fight Junior Dos San­tos and to win that fight and to get a shot at Cain Velasquez. I want noth­ing more than that. But more impor­tantly, my health and my fam­ily are more impor­tant. Let’s keep things in perspective.”

Lesnar cred­its UFC pres­i­dent Dana White and the orga­ni­za­tion for pro­vid­ing first-class assis­tance as the heavy­weight attempts to regain his full health and return to the octa­gon. In the mean­time, Lesnar apol­o­gized to every­one for his con­di­tion but vowed to return to action.

“I apol­o­gize to Junior Dos San­tos and to Spike TV,” Lesnar said. “This is an unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion for me. I dodged a bul­let about two years ago with diver­ti­c­uli­tis, at that time now know­ing what the prob­lem was, and dodged a bul­let by not hav­ing the surgery. Diver­ti­c­uli­tis is an ill­ness that never goes away. It’s some­thing that I’ve dealt with since my first occur­rence and have been bat­tling with it. It’s just some­thing that’s in your colon for the rest of your life.

“I love this sport, and I love what I do. This isn’t the end of Brock Lesnar.”

For more on UFC 131, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors sec­tion of the site.

Check out more UFC News at MMAjunkie.com. This story orig­i­nally appeared on MMAjunkie.com and is syn­di­cated on Yahoo! Sports as part of a content-partnership deal between the two sites.

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