By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

Brock Lesnar, in the current issue of Maxim magazine, takes a strong stand against the lifestyle of a typical WWE wrestler.

BROCK LESNAR [artist Cory Gould (c) MMATorch]

He said being away from home so much takes away their perspective on the real world. "You get so brainwashed.  You're on the road 300 days a year, and that's why guys get so messed up," Lesnar says. "This life just becomes a part of them.  It's not real, but some guys who are still in the business think it is.  You look at Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler - he just couldn't let it go.  You live a double life."

He says when he tried to unwind at home after so much time on the road, he couldn't get back to being himself. "I was tired of trying to be who I was in the ring and then coming home for two days to be normal. They didn't allow you to be.  The guys who get out are the smart ones, really and truly."

Keller's Analysis: I do think there's a level of what might be called "brainwashing" that goes on within WWE. It's in Vince McMahon's interest to foster a certain "us against them" attitude and a schedule that prevents wrestlers from really getting grounded outside of WWE once they're immersed in climbing the ladder of the WWE roster. I don't believe pure business reasons drive WWE's decision to not have a full-fledged off-season or several mandatory stretches of off-time at least two or three weeks in length a year. I believe there is a concern that wrestlers, if they got a taste of life that wasn't go-go-go on the road with very little time at home to really settle in and experience another aspect of their lives, wouldn't feel as much of their identity wrapped up in the WWE lifestyle and the shared camaraderie of sacrificing so much for the WWE machine and the "opportunities" it affords them along the way.

All of that said, in fairness to WWE and its wrestlers, everybody handles life on the road differently, and some wrestlers are very much equipped for a perpetual multi-decade stretch of time on the road with no multi-week systematic vacations built in. Lesnar was on the far end of the scale of those who hated the travel and hated the relentless schedule.

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