The Undertaker On Advice He Gave Brock Lesnar About Leaving WWE In 2004

During a recent appearance on the True Geordie Podcast, soon-to-be WWE Hall of Famer The Undertaker spoke about Brock Lesnar's controversial exit from the company in 2004. 

The Next Big Thing handed in his notice in the days before WrestleMania XX, citing burnout and a desire to tryout for the NFL as his main reasons for walking away from a lucrative long-term deal. 

According to The Deadman, he spoke with Brock about his decision and shared his own thoughts and feelings on the contentious situation: 

"I had a long talk with Brock. He came to me and wasn't happy. Brock is not a people person. Happy Cowboy Brock is a little different. He keeps to himself, hunts and fishes, does all that. It's a tough life, traveling the way we do.

"I think Brock was at a point where he wanted to do something different. Honestly, I told him…he was thinking about going to play pro football, I said, 'Brock, you have to do what's right for Brock'. Everyone is going to be pissed that you're going to leave and they put all this money and push behind you, but if you don't go do this, you're going to look back with a 'what if?'.  

"I don't know how much influence it had. He did end up leaving. He tried football, didn't work, he ends up in the UFC. I didn't hold any grudge…in the back of my mind, I felt like he would be back someday. It's usually the way it works out, but I do know that you can't life with 'what if?'. I didn't have a big problem like most people did with it".

Lesnar returned to WWE in April 2012 after winning the UFC Heavyweight Title and establishing himself as a force on pay-per-view for the world's leading MMA organisation. 

He famously ended The Undertaker's WrestleMania winning streak at WrestleMania XXX in 2014, and worked with The Phenom again in headline bouts at SummerSlam and Hell in a Cell in 2015. 

H/T WrestlingNews.co