Cain Velasquez

Cain Velasquez was born on 28 July 1982 in Salinas, California, to Efraín Velasquez, who had come to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, and his American-born wife Isabel. Raised in Yuma, Arizona, he compiled a 110–10 record in four years of high-school wrestling at Kofa High School, won the Arizona 5A state title twice and captained both the wrestling and the football teams.

After a national junior-college championship at Iowa Central Community College in 2001–02, he wrestled three seasons for Arizona State University, going 86–17, earning All-American honours twice and graduating in 2006. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship he fought in the heavyweight division and became a two-time UFC Heavyweight Champion, one of the few fighters to hold the belt twice.

He retired from mixed martial arts in 2019 and turned to professional wrestling, first with the Mexican promotion Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide and then with WWE, which released him in April 2020 amid pandemic budget cuts. In March 2022 he was charged in connection with a shooting; in March 2025 he was sentenced to five years in prison and four years of supervised probation, and he was granted early parole and released on 15 February 2026.

Sources

Facts in this profile are drawn from the Wikipedia article(s) linked below, consulted on 21 September 2026; the text is original. Wikipedia (English) · Wikipedia (Spanish)

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