Brock Lesnar
Ex-UFC champ fined for November 2010 incident
Somewhere in the middle of Alistair Overeem‘s drug testing and licensing drama, MMA fans may have missed Brock Lesnar running into a little trouble in Canada.
A week ago, Lesnar was charged with three counts of violating the Alberta Wildlife Act. The charges stemmed from a November 2010 hunting trip in Medicine Hat, Alberta, on which Lesnar did not properly tag a deer he shot.
Tuesday, through his attorney, Lesnar pleaded guilty to one of the charges, paid a fine, was given a six-month hunting suspension in Alberta and had the other two charges dropped.
The guilty plea for failure to affix a tag to the mule deer Lesnar shot reportedly carried a fine of $1,500 Canadian as well as the suspension. For each of his last three fights, Lesnar has earned a disclosed purse of $400,000, not including undisclosed likely pay-per-view and “locker room” bonuses. The charges of possession of a controlled animal and spoiling of skin and edible flesh were dropped by the court. The maximum penalty that could have been levied on Lesnar was a $50,000 fine and one year in prison.
In a statement released to The Associated Press, Lesnar explained the incident was not a major ordeal.
“It’s the kind of thing that happens to hunters all the time,” Lesnar said in the statement. “I want to thank the Canadian authorities for their cooperation in resolving this misunderstanding. I love Canada and I can’t wait to go back to Alberta for a hunt.”
According to Lesnar, he shot and killed two deer on his trip, which was with a guide – a requirement for U.S. hunters in Canada. Lesnar said he merely neglected to tag the deer he shot on the first day of the trip.
“After I shot the mule deer, I failed to immediately tag it,” Lesnar said. “As far as I was involved, that’s all there is to it.”
With his brief and mild legal battle in Canada now behind him, Lesnar now focuses on his fight against Overeem in the UFC 141 main event next week in Las Vegas. The winner of that fight will get a shot at UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos. Lesnar is the former champ, but hasn’t fought since losing his title to Cain Velasquez in October 2010. A second fight with diverticulitis shelved Lesnar earlier this year prior to a planned fight with dos Santos to determine the top contender for Velasquez. Shane Carwin stepped in for Lesnar, but lost to dos Santos – who went on to win the title. Overeem is the former Strikeforce heavyweight champ and is making his highly anticipated UFC debut.