Brock Lesnar is officially hanging up his boots following his loss to Oba Femi at WWE SummerSlam.
“I’m here today to do this interview to let the world and everybody know that I am retired,” Lesnar, 49, said Tuesday, August 4, on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show. “I wanted to say a big thank you to everybody. Saturday was a very emotional day for me.”
Lesnar lost to Femi, 28, in a Hell in a Cell match to cap off night one of SummerSlam on Saturday, August 1. The event took place at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, home of the NFL’s Vikings, close to where Lesnar was a national champion in wrestling at the University of Minnesota.
The loss on Saturday night was the third of a trilogy of matches between Lesnar and Femi. At WrestleMania 42 in April, Lesnar placed his gloves and boots in the middle of the ring and appeared to retire after losing to Femi. Lesnar admitted on Tuesday that, at the time, he thought he might really be done.
“When Oba Femi slammed me at WrestleMania, I was like, ‘I can’t do this again,’” he told host Pat McAfee. “I was like, ‘I think I’m done.’ But I still had some fuel in the tank.”
The seven-time WWE champion and former decorated UFC star confirmed that fans won’t be seeing him back in the octagon, either.
“Saturday for Brock Lesnar, that’s it. That’s it for me in the squared circle and for everything else, too,” Lesnar said. “I just want to give a shout-out to everybody on this universe that has followed me since I was a little kid all the way ‘til Saturday.”
He continued, “I was just a farm kid from South Dakota with a big dream and a big heart and a big ass chip on my shoulder. I’m just grateful. Grateful to be 49 years old and to be able to do what I did in this lifetime. I thank God and everybody that supported me.”
Lesnar gave a special message to “the little kids” watching the interview.
“I was just a farm kid with a bunch of lint in my pocket,” he said. “I had big dreams and I just worked. I think a lot of people nowadays with social media platform athletes for doing things, but they leave out the hard work. If kids just stay focused on work and putting the time in, good things will happen.”
