Brock Lesnar and the Greatest Pro Wrestlers Turned MMA Fighters

It's not always easy being a pro wrestling fan. Even in 2012, decades after Vince McMahon let the cat out of the bag, the most common retort to any mention of wrestling fandom is the tried and true classic—"You know it's all fake right?"

How to respond to that nugget of wisdom? Of course it's all fake! That's a big part of the fun. We love wrestling because it is so over-the-top, campy and outrageous.

Even "serious" wrestlers like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk do things in the ring that defy the laws of physics and rational thought. That's okay. It's all part of the show.

Despite these obvious truths, we still feel the need to defend the business. The wrestlers do it too. That's why Mick Foley likes to run down his laundry list of injuries. Sure, they all happened as a human cartoon, but they lend realism to the absurd.

It's the same reason Jim Ross points out a wrestler's amateur background. It somehow makes it easier to ignore the utter possibility of a hurricanrana when the performer was once a special teams player at the University of Oklahoma.

And it's why we love it when one of our own goes on to succeed in mixed martial arts. See? Those guys pretending to be tough on television? Maybe there's something to that act after all.

Everyone knows Brock Lesnar. But he's not the first and he won't be the last pro wrestler to excel in MMA. Here's ten other wrestling stars who went on to MMA fame and fortune.

10. Nobuhiko Takada

Sure, he was a complete and utter failure as a professional fighter. But, without Nobuhiko Takada, there wouldn't have been a Pride promotion.

Takada was one of pro wrestling's biggest stars, a performer so charismatic and extraordinary that he didn't need the major league companies to draw fans. One of the most popular "shootstyle wrestlers," a group of wrestlers attempting to make wrestling matches seem real, Takada headlined to huge crowds in his own UWFi promotion.

Eventually he moved on to Pride.The company was built on his back. And while he never lived up to the enormous expectations of Japanese fans, his young protege did. We'll see him a little later on this list.

9. Bobby Lashley

Bobby Lashley, like Brock Lesnar, was once a dynamite college wrestler. Unlike Lesnar, he wasn't as a heavyweight. In college, Lashley twice won the NAIA championship at 177 pounds.

How he gained a solid 100 pounds of lean muscle we'll leave to your imagination—but you can't deny he was a ripped specimen of a man when he made his WWE debut in 2005.

Lashley never quite clicked with WWE fans, although his match with Umaga headlined Wrestlemania 23.

Mixed Martial Arts fans were equally noncommittal. The transition was hard for Lashley, whose big name and big salary demanded the kind of competition he wasn't quite ready to fight inside an unforgiving steel cage. 

Still looking for his big break in MMA, Lashley fights James Thompson this May in New Dehli, India.

8. Dan Severn

We are among friends right? Let's be honest with each other—Dan Severn was a lousy pro wrestler. Awkward, stilted, and entirely colorless. He was just as bland as a mixed martial artist.

Semaphore Entertainment Group, the company that ran the UFC in the company's early years, hated Severn's style.

He bored fans in Japan too, sending thousands to the souvenir stand when he fought Kimo in a dull bout at Pride 1. Severn's lack of appeal, apparently, knew no cultural or language barriers.

7. Kiyoshi Tamura

Although you'd get an argument from fans of Volk Han or Yoshiaki Fujiwara, many hardcore wrestling fans consider Kiyoshi Tamura the best shootstyle wrestler of all time. An artist in the ring, Tamura's matches were so realistic that it was often hard to tell which were real and which were predetermined.

Tamura was so good in fact, that the MMA site Sherdog.com has included several of his matches I believe to be nothing more than pro wrestling on his unofficial fight record. That's high praise for Tamura's artistry.

6. Alberto Del Rio

Alberto Del Rio comes from wrestling royalty. His father, who wrestled as the masked Dos Caras, is a hall-of-famer. So is his uncle, the world famous Mil Mascaras. With that pedigree, his pro wrestling stardom was all but guaranteed.

But having famous family doesn't guarantee success in amateur athletics. Del Rio, born Albert Rodriguez, had to make his own way. He competed with the likes of UFC star Randy Couture in the Greco Roman ranks and became Mexico's top amateur in his weight class.

His pro fighting career was bizarre to say the least. He competed with his trademark mask on. That worked okay in the lower levels, but when he made his Pride debut against the great Mirko Cro Cop, it cost him dearly.

With his peripheral vision blocked by the mask, Del Rio never saw the kick coming that knocked him cold.

5. Kazuyuki Fujita

Wrestling legend Antonio Inoki became a legend going to a draw with Muhammad Ali in a real match, albeit one with wacky rules. He solidified his reputation with a string of wins over a hodgepodge of real life martial artists.

His obsession with establishing wrestling as the toughest martial art in Japan paved the way for the shootstyle revolution and ultimately, mixed martial arts.

When MMA became huge in Japan, Inoki tried to ride the wave. He booked his New Japan Pro Wrestlers into legitimate matches whenever possible—mostly with disastrous consequences. Longtime New Japan star Yuji Nagata's losses to Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop, for example, lasted less than two minutes combined.

The one exception was Fujita, nicknamed "Iron Head." His ability to take punishment, combined with a legitimate amateur wrestling background, led him to a 15-9 career record, including wins over Gilbert Yvel, Mark Kerr and Ken Shamrock.

4. Chael Sonnen

Chael Sonnen loves pro wrestling. You can see it clearly in his fight promos, sometimes clearly homages to wrestling greats like "Superstar" Billy Graham. There are those in the business that will tell you that Sonnen is a better talker than anyone currently on the WWE roster. He gets it.

Few know that Sonnen almost became a wrestler himself. He trained at the WCW Power Plant, but never actually joined the company, choosing to focus on MMA instead.

"The WCW use to have a training camp that was all strength and conditioning," Sonnen told Bleacher Report. "When I was in college I went through it to get good exercise in. I was never there to become part of the business, just getting workouts during the off season."

That's Chael Sonnen. Always working...

3. Ken Shamrock

Everyone knows Ken Shamrock went from the UFC to the WWF, leaving the then struggling MMA promotion for a big paycheck from Vince McMahon. But before mixed martial arts even existed, Shamrock was pursuing a career in pro wrestling.

First as Vince Torelli in the South East and later, with more success as Wayne Shamrock in Japan, Ken was knee deep in the wrestling industry before the UFC came calling.

Along with Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki, he was a leading man in Pancrase, a pro wrestling promotion created to bring legitimate competition to the masses.

2. Masakatsu Funaki

At one point Funaki was considered the heir apparent to Antonio Inoki. Instead, he left sure success in New Japan Pro Wrestling behind to pursue shootstyle wrestling with the UWF, Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi and finally with the revolutionary Pancrase.

Named by wrestling great Karl Gotch, Pancrase had standard pro wrestling rules—the only catch was that the action was mostly real. Funaki changed wrestling forever, helping lead the way for Pride and the mixed martial arts revolution.

1. Kazushi Sakuraba

At his peak, no one in his weight class could touch Kazushi Sakuraba. Unfortunately for the catch wrestling star, he never competed in his own class, preferring to take on the world's best 20 pounds above his own fighting weight.

Best known for his battles with the Gracie family, Sakuraba, a former understudy to Takada in the UWFi, provided Japanese fans a much needed native star at exactly the point the sport was desperate for one. His matches packed arenas and his name will live forever in mixed martial arts—and professional wrestling—history.