Brock Lesnar lightens up a bit after the fight of his life

Brock Lesnar tried his best to maintain the veil, explaining that his health-imposed year off from the octagon hasn’t changed the fact he’s “the same ornery SOB” who “still hates you guys,” referring to reporters.

Something, however, has unmistakably changed about the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s heavyweight champion.

This new Lesnar cracks jokes. And laughs at them. He said he feels “like a cat with nine lives, and I’ve got eight left.” He won’t disparage his Saturday night opponent, interim champion Shane Carwin, kidding that “Carwin is better-looking. I’ll give him that, and that’s it.”

Lesnar said of his obvious good cheer: “It’s just a good day to be alive.”

The old Lesnar wouldn’t have uttered such words in public for fear of spoiling his reputation earned in World Wrestling Entertainment as an antagonist. The Lesnar from July 2009 beat the will out of Frank Mir, shoved him again for good measure after victory was pronounced, then shot some single-finger daggers to the crowd that jeered his over-the-top machismo act.

That bully was then sentenced to a frightening health scare, suffering through a serious and painful battle with an intestinal ailment known as diverticulitis.

“I lost 42 pounds,” Lesnar, 32, said recently of the illness that forced him to cancel two UFC fight dates. “To wake up every day on drugs, not even being able to put food in your mouth. You find out who your friends are.

“I felt like I was on my deathbed.”

In January, with Lesnar preparing for career-ending surgery, Mayo Clinic physicians instead delivered the fighter life-changing news that he could continue his UFC experience. The affected area had healed.

That diagnosis could go down as the most significant in UFC history, given Lesnar’s popularity. In November 2008, his heavyweight-title victory over Randy Couture generated a live gate of better than $4.7 million at MGM Grand — the third-best money-maker in UFC history. His Mir triumph anchored a loaded card that eclipsed $5 million in gate revenue, with more than 1 million pay-per-view buys.

Lesnar, already a well-known public commodity because he starred in dozens of WWE pay-per-view events, had clearly emerged as the face of mixed martial arts. Then he was gone.

Now, he’s back and revealed recently the resumption of his five-fight mixed martial arts career feels like a “second coming.”

A week removed from the stunning first loss by respected Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko to Fabricio Werdum in a Strikeforce event, Lesnar is now strongly positioned to become the world’s top heavyweight MMA fighter by beating Carwin.

Lesnar has retained an NFL strength and conditioning coach, Luke Richesson, and a new boxing coach, Peter Welch, to address his feeling that his training regimen was becoming “stagnant.”

UFC President Dana White, who’s known Welch for years dating to his work in boxing, said the coach has told him, “Brock’s knocking this guy [Carwin] out in the first round.”

“I really regrouped, became rejuvenated,” Lesnar said. “I came leaps and bounds, am looking forward to this. I want to be in better shape, want to be a better fighter.”

Asked if he was concerned about rust against the hard-hitting, skilled wrestler Carwin, Lesnar reeled off his sparring partners and said, “I’ve had about 40 tuneup fights in the last eight weeks.”

Lesnar enjoyed a training camp visit by Couture. Those close to Couture say he was impressed by Lesnar’s performance, and saw no signs of weakness from the illness.

“Being able to bring him in … telling me I can do things better, you better listen to that guy,” Lesnar said.

He gets it now. One of those nine lives may be gone — perhaps the one that nobody could stand — but the fighter remains.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com