Brock Lesnar RETIRES After WrestleMania 42 Loss To Oba Femi (WWE News)

While it wasn't necessarily a surprise to see Oba Femi standing tall and picking up a win over Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 Night 2, it was certainly a surprise to see Lesnar apparently retiring.

The match itself was exactly what it needed to be, going just shy of five minutes, the two exchanging meaty moves, and Oba getting a fairly dominant win as he put Brock away with the Fall From Grace powerbomb for the clean 1-2-3.

However, post-match, the Beast Incarnate removed his gloves and then his boots, left them in the centre of the ring, shared an emotional embrace with Paul Heyman - who'd been ringside for the match - and thanked the fans as he made his way to the back. And with that, that's seemingly the end of Brock Lesnar's pro wrestling career.

Brock Lesnar leaves his gear in the ring. What's next for The Beast?

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While it wasn't outright confirmed that this was it for Brock Lesnar, Michael Cole and Wade Barrett indicated as much on commentary during this segment. Of course, many a wrestler has left their boots in the ring as a way to signal their retirement, and, likewise, it's tradition for MMA fighters to leave their gloves in the cage when calling time on their career.

If this is indeed the end of Brock's career, it wraps up a somewhat love/hate relationship with the industry. A two-time NCAA Division I Champion, Lesnar signed with WWE in 2000 and was assigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling. He'd make his main roster bow in 2002, debuting on the Raw after WrestleMania 18 and going on a tear that would see him defeat the Rock at that year's SummerSlam to become the youngest World Champion in company history.

By the start of 2004, Brock would become frustrated with the wrestling world, and a mixture of burnout, creative unhappiness, and the travel schedule of the time saw him leave the company after WrestleMania 20, where he and Goldberg were famously both booed by the Madison Square Garden crowd; Goldberg also on his way out of WWE at that point.

Brock Lesnar would work sporadically for NJPW and Antioni Inoki's IGW from 2005 to 2007 - including a run as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion - while he faced a legal dispute with WWE, with the market leader unsuccessfully attempting to prevent Lesnar from wrestling elsewhere.

Having made his MMA debut for Dynamite!! USA in the summer of 2007, Brock would sign with the UFC and debut with a memorable loss to Frank Mir at UFC 81 in February 2008. By November of that year - after picking up a win over Heath Herring - Lesnar would become the UFC Heavyweight Champion by defeating the legendary Randy Couture at UFC 91.

Brock would finish up with the UFC after a December 2011 loss to Alistair Overeem, leaving him with an overall MMA record of 9-3-1, including a one-off 2016 return to face Mark Hunt at UFC 200; a fight Lesnar won, but was later ruled a no contest after Brock failed a drug test.

The wrestling world was shocked when Brock Lesnar returned to WWE the night after WrestleMania 28, attacking John Cena and going on a run that would bring more championship gold and, famously, the ending of the Undertaker's iconic Streak at WrestleMania 30. That second WWE run lasted until 2020, and Brock initially planned to retire after losing to Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania 36. By SummerSlam 2021, though, Lesnar made another shock return, where he'd spend the next two years tangling with the likes of Roman Reigns, Bobby Lashley, and Cody Rhodes.

Plans for Brock Lesnar to partake in the 2024 Royal Rumble and WrestleMania 40 were scrapped, and he was pulled from all creative plans after being named over 40 times in the still-ongoing lawsuit brought against Vince McMahon and WWE by former WWE employee Janel Grant. Grant alleges McMahon sexually abused and trafficked her, with the lawsuit initially referencing an unnamed WWE star who was also a former UFC fighter. That person would later be identified as Brock Lesnar.

Despite this lawsuit, WWE brought Brock back at last year's SummerSlam, and it now appears that the 48-year-old has decided to permanently hang up his boots following that loss to Oba Femi. Previously, there was a belief that Lesnar might retire at SummerSlam 2026, but that is seemingly not the case.