Brock Lesnar "Felt Like a Trapped Animal" in WWE Before Match With Goldberg

Brock Lesnar appeared on Steve Austin’s WWE Network podcast on Monday. In the snippet above, Austin brought up the match at WrestleMania 20 where Lesnar was fighting Bill Goldberg with Austin as special guest referee. At that point, Lesnar says that he didn’t want to be there.

“I felt entrapped,” he said. “I felt like I was a trapped animal. I can remember times, being on an airplane, and wanting to punch the door open and jump out of the plane. That’s what I felt like. I tell Vince this to this day. I was built to be in the ring. I wasn’t built to get from ring to ring.”

“I never had a plan,” Lesnar continued. “The NFL was an escape goat [sic] for me. It wasn’t that I wanted to pursue a passion to be a football player. I was just pulling at strings. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and if all I was ever going to be after that was a dairy farmer in South Dakota I was gonna be alright with it.”

WWE has thus far been able to make it work with Lesnar the second time around by accommodating a part-time schedule. That Lesnar remembers the match with Goldberg, but doesn’t associate it with WrestleMania 20, is illustrative of how he contrasts with Austin. Lesnar had a meteoric rise in the business, but hated what it entailed. Just 26 years old for that Goldberg main event, Lesnar was already burnt out. Austin, on the other hand, toiled for his break. His famous 316 promo at 1996 King of the Ring, and subsequent EXPLOSION, didn’t come until he was 32.