Gerald Brisco Discusses The Undertaker’s Final Farewell, the Process of Scouting Brock Lesnar

– The Wrestling Inc. Daily recently interviewed WWE Hall of Famer and longtime employee Gerald Brisco, who discussed the final farewell of The Undertaker in WWE and more. He also discussed discovering and scouting Brock Lesnar during his collegiate wrestling days. Below are some highlights from WrestlingInc.com.

Brisco on The Undertaker’s final farewell: “I’m a big football fan, so I usually watch football, but last night with Mark [Callaway], there was no way in hell I was gonna miss out. I was emotional, and I wouldn’t be telling the truth to say if my eyes didn’t get a little messy last night. Paul Bearer, really dear friend of mine. I still got a message on my phone from Paul when he was doing an autograph show in Atlanta. We were kind of ribbing. He asked me if I was going to come up there and keep the bar open. I said no, but I’ll find you. I know what you do. You check in. He used to, in these hotels, check in as ‘George Jones’ because George Jones was his main man singer. I said, ‘Well, tonight, I’m going to use an alias.’ What, Merle Haggard? ‘How did you know?’ And I’ve got that message all these years from Paul Bearer, and Paul Bearer was the one that actually set up my first Twitter account at WrestleMania in Miami in 2012. ‘What is this Twitter stuff Paul,’ and Paul had a Twitter account. I think he had like 30 followers. I said, ‘Would you help me set it up because I don’t know how to do that stuff.’ So he sat there. He sent my first tweet out. The first tweet on my Twitter feed is set up by Paul Bearer.”

Brisco on Brock Lesnar: “Well, number one, it did take a damn nuclear scientist to figure out this guy had what it takes to be a WWE star in college especially. If you got three words out of Brock Lesnar, you were getting a great conversation out Brock Lesnar. I was a personal friend [and] I was a teammate at Oklahoma State University and in the same recruiting class as his college coach. I saw Brock when he was a junior in college, and he lost in the national championship, but he was still a beast. He shouldn’t have lost, but he did.”

On wanting to bring Brock to WWE: “I got a mental picture of him there of what could transpire, but I knew he was a junior, and there was no way in hell I was gonna call one of my best friends from college and say, ‘Hey, I want your guy.’ But I think I called Jay [Robinson]. I said, ‘Jay, I know Brock is a junior, but I want him for WWE,’ and he said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, if you give me your word, he got one more year here. If you give me your word that you won’t distract Brock,’ because Jay Robinson told me this himself, ‘Brock is easily distracted because he wants to do so many things.’ As we found out later in life, he jumped from UFC to WWE and back and forth like that. Yeah. He said, ‘I give you my word. Next year when he finishes the National Championship, within a week after he wins that National Title, I’ll have him in my office, and I’ll put you on line with him. And I’ll talk to him beforehand. I’ll make sure he’s nailed out for you before you even call. I might even have a bonus for you,’ and he did have a bonus.”

How the bonus was Shelton Benjamin: “And that bonus turned out to be Shelton Benjamin. So I got two on one phone call. I got the greatest athletes to pass through WWE through my friend Jay Robinson. I got Shelton Benjamin and Brock Lesnar, but it didn’t take a brain surgeon to know that this guy had what it took. Sure enough, he did.”