Cain Velasquez recalls awe at fighting Brock Lesnar: ‘Wow, it’s a big human’

Cain Velasquez knew he was in for a fight when he first laid eyes on Brock Lesnar.

The heavyweight greats squared off at UFC 121 in October 2010 and though Velasquez went on to win the contest via a dominant first-round knockout, his first impression of Lesnar was one of pure awe.

“Obviously, his size,” Velasquez said in an interview with Tim Kennedy. “His size, his power, and knowing how good of a wrestler he is. Again, OK, dangerous, can be dangerous, especially with a certain style, for sure. But his massive size is like, ‘Wow, it’s a big human.’”

Lesnar’s size, athleticism, and wrestling ability were enough to earn him the UFC heavyweight title in just his fourth pro MMA bout. However, the longtime pro wrestling star was unable to overpower Velasquez and eventually succumbed to a flurry of punches, dropping his belt to Velasquez.

A two-time NCAA All-American in wrestling, Velasquez proved to be more than a match for Lesnar, and he credits his team—which included future UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier—for preparing him for the worst possible scenarios.

“I probably weighed in at, like, 240-something going in,” Velasquez said. “My strong suits with him, I was very good at getting off on the bottom. We did this in college wrestling a lot. I was just very good at getting up from the bottom, so I knew if I were to get stuck there, then it could be a long night for me, but we worked on that over and over again with DC. We had another national champion heavyweight wrestler come in.

“We started in the worst positions, whatever [coach] Bob [Cook] said, in the middle of sparring, I had to lay down on my back with 16-ounce gloves and had DC lay on top of me and that’s where we started from multiple times a round. So I was very good at getting up from the bottom, especially for that camp, and I knew I just had to keep it on the feet with strikes. Just the pressure of everything, but it didn’t matter for me. My mentality was I didn’t care if I lost or won, I’m just going to give you what I have. That’s it. That’s all I could do.”

Velasquez managed a pair of title defenses during his run as heavyweight champion, but his career was cut short by a litany of injuries. He retired from MMA competition in 2019 and later dabbled in pro wrestling with several companies, including WWE. Currently, Velasquez awaits sentencing after pleading no-contest to several charges stemming from an incident in which he fired into a vehicle containing Harry Goularte, who is accused of molesting Velasquez’s son at a daycare owned by Goularte’s mother.

As for how Velasquez thinks he would fare against the current top heavyweights like Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, he kept his prediction to himself, but agreed the matchups would be compelling.

“I think they’d be close fights or exciting fights,” Velasquez said.