Rattling The Cage

THE ULTIMATE Fighting Championship has penetrated the defenses of the mainstream with an assault that relies heavily on flash and glitz. UFC fights are flush with pulsating lights and market-tested music and celebrities du jour: Mandy Moore, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton. In between the 20 or so cards held each year, UFC fans troll forums and other online destinations—that is, when they're not watching the reality show The Ultimate Fighter.

And in the opposite corner is ... the UFC's brightest and most polarizing star, heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar. A self-described Northern redneck, the 31-year-old Lesnar is a wood-splitting, truck-driving, real-life hunter-gatherer who owns more guns (dozens) than e-mail accounts (none). "The people I care about," he says, "they know where to find me if they need me."

The hottest fighter in this hot sport lives in frigid Alexandria, Minn. (pop. 11,187), a town approximately halfway between Fargo, N.D., and Minneapolis and a million cultural miles from the UFC's base in Las Vegas. Alexandria is the kind of place where Carhartts outnumber Nikes and pickups outnumber cars, where six inches of snow is considered a light dusting, and a restaurant marquee on the main drag triumphantly announces, WE NOW SERVE PEPSI!

On July 11 Lesnar will enter the Octagon, the UFC's steel cage, for a rematch against former heavyweight champ Frank Mir. As the main bout of UFC 100 in Las Vegas, Lesnar-Mir could well be the most profitable fight in mixed-martial-arts history, generating more than a million pay-per-view buys. True to himself, however, Lesnar is preparing for the event at his Alexandria training gym, a converted warehouse with no official name, much less a sign out front. The interior is occupied mostly by free weights, treadmills and a wrestling room. Sparring partners drive back and forth from Fargo, about 90 miles away, and the Twin Cities, about 110 miles distant. When the weather is bad, which is often, Lesnar provides them accommodations near the home he shares with his wife, Rena.

UFC image-making types have gently floated the idea that Lesnar relocate to somewhere a bit more accessible, but in this, as in his fights, the 6'3", 265-pound Lesnar can't be pushed around. "Up here people let you lead your life," he says. "Even if you're the Britney Spears of Alexandria, it means you might have to sign one autograph on your way to go ice fishing."

Lesnar grew up two hours away in Webster, S.D., on a struggling family dairy farm. He was put to work early; he proudly notes that by age five he'd suffered two hernias lifting bales of hay. With his spiky blond hair and penchant for mischief, he reminded some people of Bart Simpson, but with a more active pituitary gland: When he graduated from high school in 1996 he could deadlift 600 pounds. That's a lot of hay.

Blessed with an alloy of strength, quickness and agility, Lesnar wrestled at Minnesota and won the 2000 NCAA heavyweight title in his senior year. (As a junior he lost in the final to Stephen Neal, now a New England Patriots lineman.) He was on only a partial scholarship, though, and he says that by the time he left, he owed $40,000 in student loans—no small sum for the son of farmers living under constant threat of foreclosure. When World Wrestling Entertainment offered him a six-figure guarantee in a multiyear promotional contract, the decision was no decision at all. "I didn't have this in my pocket," he says, opening an empty hand. "I got into the business for business reasons. Make your money and get out."

With a rippling physique, obvious athleticism and a willingness to play the heel, Lesnar (a.k.a. the Next Big Thing) quickly ascended the WWE organizational chart. And like many who, barely out of adolescence, come into wealth overnight, he lived like a rock star. His Calvinist Upper Midwest ethic vanished: As he made more and more money, he bought houses, planes, gadgets and more vehicles than he could keep track of. "It definitely wasn't the same down-to-earth Brock I knew," says Marty Morgan, a friend who, as a wrestling assistant at Minnesota in the '90s, had recruited Lesnar. "He went from being an athlete to being in show business."

Within a few years Lesnar was beefing with the Rock and busting the Undertaker's hand with a propane tank. (For good measure he began dating Rena Mero, better known by her nom de ring, Sable.) In a memorable match in Wrestlemania XIX, Lesnar faced off against another former NCAA wrestling champion, Kurt Angle. After climbing the turnbuckle, Lesnar botched a "shooting star press" move and landed on his head. Thanks to some deft improv work by Angle, the concussed Lesnar still won.

For someone with Lesnar's taste for honest competition, the prearranged outcomes in the WWE were frustrating. "I'd put on the best damn show I could, and that's where the competition came from," he says. "If I couldn't beat you, I wanted to outperform you. But that gets old." So too did the 250 nights a year on the road. "It's a traveling f------ circus," Lesnar says with an ursine growl. "At first I enjoyed it, but I wasn't born to be a pro wrestler. You spread yourself so thin, you end up bitter."