Conversations about Brock Lesnar occasionally drop in the name of Stephen Neal. Neal, a 6-foot-4, 305 lb. New England Patriots guard, was a two-time NCAA Division I champ who once beat Lesnar for that title in 1999. His MMA participation has been a what-if proposition. At 33, he flirts with middle age in combat sports.
The latter comment is odd out of context with MMA, since the market for “Olympic-style wrestling” is non-existent without the addition of strikes. Cornrich could be talking just to talk, but a 2008 Boston Herald piece mentioned Neal had trained with Tito Ortiz; Lesnar himself thinks Neal would be a natural.
Is there a market for his interest? Neal was a standout wrestler, but doesn’t share Lesnar’s WWE fame or his ability to stare down a camera crew. If he were built up as Lesnar’s doppelganger, maybe there’s a hook there. But it’s unlikely he’d command a huge starting salary. If he did it, it’d be for the love of competition -- not for anything even approaching the four-year, $10 million deal that’s about to expire with the Patriots.
Maybe that would be enough. "I'd love to [get back into wrestling]," he told USA Today in 2005. "The weight class is 263 pounds, and I'd like to get my body back down to that weight. I don't know. I might be too old by then. I might be too beat up. But it's a dream."