WWE Superstar Bobby Lashley was recently a guest on former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia’s podcast, Chasing Glory, to talk about several professional wrestling topics. Lashley made his WWE return this past April. His initial run with WWE lasted from 2004 to 2008. Lashley made his main roster debut on an episode of SmackDown in September of 2005. He tells Garcia that Paul Heyman actually played a vital role in that debut:
“The first time when I debuted on Smackdown, I was not supposed to debut. There was nothing going on, I was just one of the OVW guys that were on the road. So they let me go on the road, do a couple house shows and that was it, I was not supposed to be brought up. And then it goes to TV and I was in catering because there was no way I was doing anything and then someone says, ‘Hey, you have a match tonight’.
“Immediately my heart starts racing, I was like, ‘Huh? What? What are you talking about?! Me? I’m not supposed to do it!’ But then when I went over there I kind of stepped back in the back and you know what? The person that got me was Paul, Paul Heyman. As crazy as this is, he came and talked to me because he mentored me back in OVW when I was in OVW, he was a writer there and he was the one that talked to me and got to know me.
“He just walked over to me with that smug little grin that he always has on his face and looked at me and goes, ‘You nervous?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah I’m nervous, what are you talking about? There’s 17,000 people here! I just started wrestling!’
“And he goes, ‘The only thing you’re really nervous about is and the only thing that messes you up is this whole anticipation act. When they call your name, you’re going to have to go out and I know you’re going to do great and you’re going to be excited and you’re going to come back and be like, man why did I kill myself before?’ he said, ‘If you can handle this stuff now, the rest is easy.'”
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