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Steroid-sensitive Brock Lesnar is clean in pre-fight tests

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Brock Lesnar nearly hung up on me on Wednesday.

The 2000 NCAA champion wrestler from Minnesota and former World Wrestling Entertainment ‘champion’ on Saturday will challenge Ultimate Fighting heavyweight champion Randy Couture. The Times will preview the fight Friday on our MMA page.

The night before the telephone interview with Lesnar, I had watched an entertaining “Countdown to UFC 91” DVD, in which he claimed to have led a “dirty” existence while with the WWE.

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Lesnar also had acknowledged during a recent ESPN interview that pain pills and alcohol once had been part of his vices. But he promptly stopped chatting with ESPN when his size was mentioned.

Clearly, he didn’t want to hear recycled allegations that he has used performance-enhancing drugs.

Lesnar threatened to end our telephone call when I asked what he had meant by “dirty.”

This was an issue I wrote about a few years ago after WWE executive Vince McMahon didn’t hang up on me -- but did subject yours truly to a barrage of salty language. (That kind of talk doesn’t make suspicions go away, by the way.)

Lesnar has passed all the drug tests he has taken as a UFC fighter, including one administered about a month ago. ‘All those tests were negative, for street and performance-enhancing drugs,’ Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Officer Keith Kizer said Thursday.

Lesnar will be tested again on fight night.

Couture is expected to weigh in at about 40 pounds below Lesnar on Friday. But the fighter says he’s doesn’t waste time worrying about possible drug use by an opponent.

‘It’s not a concern of mine,’ Couture said. ‘I’m sure I’ve competed against guys like that in the past, in the days before testing. This new protocol with us being tested about five weeks ago makes me believe he’s clean.

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‘Even if it was the case that the guy was using, in my mind it’s an indication of a shortcoming in his mind. Somewhere, the guy who uses is weak in the mind and I can exploit that.’

-- Lance Pugmire

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