Paul Heyman believes Brock Lesnar’s retirement from professional wrestling is legitimate this time around.
Lesnar officially announced his retirement after losing to Oba Femi in the main event of night one of WWE SummerSlam 2026. During an appearance on The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast recorded shortly after the event (full episode below), Heyman discussed the decision and said he has accepted that Lesnar’s in-ring career is over.
Heyman noted that Lesnar had talked about retirement on multiple occasions in the past, only to eventually change his mind. This time, however, Heyman could tell the 49-year-old had made his final decision.
“Brock has always been a realist about himself, and it’s time,” Heyman said. “And to him, I would hear this every year from him, ‘Nope, this is my last contract. This is it.’ And he meant it when he said it. And as we got closer, he would then change his mind or it didn’t take a lot to talk him into it. But I knew that this was it. Because he knew that this was it, he wasn’t just saying it because he felt it at the moment. This decision was fait accompli.”
Lesnar’s SummerSlam match with Femi concluded their trilogy, with Femi winning two of the three bouts. Following their final match, Lesnar passed the torch to Femi before publicly announcing his retirement a few days later.
With his wrestling career behind him, Lesnar plans to spend more time helping his children pursue their own athletic careers.
The Undertaker also revealed that Lesnar called him from Heyman’s phone on the day of SummerSlam. While Undertaker did not disclose the full details of their conversation, he indicated that Lesnar wanted to express his appreciation for the role Undertaker played in his career.
Lesnar and Undertaker shared the ring numerous times over the years, most notably when Lesnar ended Undertaker’s undefeated WrestleMania streak at WrestleMania 30.
Undertaker described their SummerSlam phone conversation as a “full-circle” moment and said the call reinforced to him how much Lesnar cared about the wrestling business.
“I think he genuinely — I mean, he had to love this business,” Undertaker said about Lesnar. “And things like that phone call yesterday, just kind of reiterated to me, like, yeah, he understood, he gets it. And it’s kind of sad for me, because it’s one less guy that’s going to be around that understands tradition and the way things used to be done.”
