Diverticulitis forces Lesnar to withdraw again

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Alexandria’s Brock Lesnar has reached another obstacle in his UFC career after pulling out of his fight against Junior dos Santos because of diverticulitis.

Lesnar was scheduled to headline UFC 131 against dos Santos to determine who would be the top contender to Cain Velasquez’s heavyweight title. The same disease that kept him from fighting for a year from 2009-2010 forced him to pull out of the top-contenders bout last week, almost a month before the June 11 fight. Shane Carwin will take his place against dos Santos.

“I was forced to make a decision to go back down to the doctor this week to figure out how far this thing is along,” Lesnar said on a conference call last Thursday. “What it does is it drains my entire body down. Basically, you’ve got an infection in your stomach and all my resources went to fight this problem instead of rebuilding what I tore down in the gym.”

Lesnar said he feels pain in his abdomen region and is worn out to the point where it has become impossible to train at the level he wants to, to get ready for a fight.

“It’s not as serious as last time,” he said. “It just didn’t allow me to train the way I needed to train for a No. 1 contender’s bout. I am forced with the decision to either have surgery or to deal with this for the rest of my life, so obviously I am fighting a different fight than having to give up the fight on June 11.”

Lesnar said symptoms began appearing again almost three months ago. He immediately began taking antibiotics to try to fight the infection but was forced to visit doctors at the Mayo Clinic last Wednesday after the symptoms persisted.

Lesnar said his health and being there for his family are the top priorities in his life. But he made it a point to say he is not done in the UFC. The 33-year-old is the most popular pay-per view draw in the sport, and he still feels he can overcome this to challenge for the heavyweight title in the future.

“I will tell you one thing,” Lesnar said. “I’m not retiring. This isn’t the end of my fight career. This is something that I believe, and I have strong faith, that there’s a solution to every problem. I just have to find a solution to fix this problem. I love this sport, and I love what I do. This isn’t the end of Brock Lesnar. This is a speed bump in the road.”

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