"Two hundred and sixty-five pounds? That's him dehydrated," says entertainment lawyer David Bradley Olsen of client Brock Lesnar. "His walking-around weight's about 280." Put that muscle on a 6-foot-3½-inch frame, and it's obvious why Lesnar's mixed-martial-arts opponents consider facing him to be serious business. But when he won the Ultimate Fighting Championship's heavyweight title last Nov. 15, Lesnar's business got even bigger.
Olsen, a black belt himself in taekwondo, and Brian Stegeman, both of Henson & Efron, fielded more than 3,000 phone calls and e-mails during Thanksgiving weekend for interview requests and endorsement deals. Not bad for the 2000 national champion collegiate wrestler at the University of Minnesota. After graduation, with the help of university staff, Lesnar chose the team at Henson & Efron to represent him.
"He could probably pick us up, each in one hand, if he ever gets angry with us," says Stegeman.
Olsen and Stegeman have had their hands full, too, with Lesnar's frequent career moves. After college he signed on with World Wrestling Entertainment, tried out with the Minnesota Vikings in 2004, jumped back into the squared circle with New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2005, and then moved into the world of mixed martial arts in 2007. "We work with him on the full spectrum-from entertainment and endorsement deals all the way to litigation, if it comes to that," Stegeman says. "If you go with many different people, you're going to get conflicting advice."
Lesnar "lives out in the woods," near Alexandria, says Olsen. "He likes that." But that doesn't mean he never gets out. And when he does, he brings his lawyers with him.
"We stay in nice big hotels," says Olsen. "But he can't use their gyms with all the attention [he attracts]." So Stegeman and Olsen often help Lesnar find a private gym. While on one such mission a couple of years ago in East Los Angeles, the lawyers got a little more than they bargained for.
"So we have directions to the gym and the cab driver keeps saying, 'You don't want to go there,'" says Olsen. In the meantime, despite having directions, they could tell the cab driver had no idea where they were going.
Then came the gunshots. But Lesnar would not be deterred, and the group eventually found the gym.
"It was the Inoki Dojo," says Olsen.
"It was a warehouse," says Stegeman.
"Basically this gray garage-slash-warehouse," says Olsen, "and it was at the end of an alley."
"And no streetlights," says Stegeman.
So far, Olsen and Stegeman say Lesnar is happy with his career-and so are they. "This is what he's built for," says Stegeman.
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