Bobby Lashley said he is fully healed and ready to return to AEW to pursue championships with MVP and Shelton Benjamin, adding that he and Brock Lesnar are both still in great shape and could still make a real MMA fight happen for the fans.
Speaking in an interview with Monopoly Events at the Fall Love of Wrestling convention, Lashley addressed speculation about his health and said the reports of him being injured were overstated.
“I am healed. Everybody thought I was hurt. I’m not hurt. Ready to go,” Lashley said.
Lashley has been absent from AEW programming in recent months. He reunited with MVP and Shelton Benjamin in AEW last year as part of the Hurt Business, and said the group’s immediate focus upon his return will be the trios division.
“Between Shelton and MVP, we want to do things collectively. We want to do things as a group,” Lashley said. “So I think we’re going to go after the trios guys. Let’s see what we can do with those guys, because I think that’s what we need.”
“They’re Yanking Me Back In”
Lashley credited MVP and Benjamin with keeping him motivated during his time away and said the group dynamic is built on genuine friendship.
“The crowd loves us over there. We have an opportunity to bring back what we had before, and it’s real,” Lashley said. “Shelton is an amazing person, an amazing wrestler. MVP is amazing at everything that he does. We just have a great group, and we’re all friends, so we all pull for each other. Anytime one of us is down, the other one pulls us up.”
Lashley said MVP and Benjamin have been pushing him to get back in the ring. “Right now they’re pulling me up. They’re yanking me back in. They said it’s ready. We’re ready to go back out there and win some titles,” he said.
Lashley also acknowledged that AEW World Champion MJF has been involved in the Hurt Business storyline. When asked about unfinished business with MJF, Lashley kept his answer broad.
“MJF has the title, so I think everybody has some unfinished business with him,” Lashley said. “But I have no hard feelings to anyone. All I want to do is win titles. So that’s where I’m really focused on when we get back.”
Lashley on a Potential MMA Fight With Brock Lesnar
Lashley, who has a legitimate combat sports background with fights in Strikeforce and Bellator, was asked how a hypothetical MMA fight with Brock Lesnar would have played out. Lashley said it would have been a crowd-pleasing brawl.
“We would have both put on MMA gloves, and then we would have swung punches. We would have went takedowns. We would have swung punches, and it would have been great. And everybody would have loved it,” Lashley said.
When pressed on whether he would have won, Lashley declined to make a prediction out of respect for Lesnar as a competitor.
“I never say I’m going to beat anyone. I’m confident in what I can do,” Lashley said. “But nobody that goes out there and disrespects another fighter by saying they can beat them before they beat them. I’m a competitor. If you ask me if I can beat anybody, I can beat everybody in the world. But as respect for other fighters, until that happens, it is what it is.”
Lashley said he did not know Lesnar personally before they worked together in WWE but came away impressed. “I take my hat off to him, because Brock is a true competitor, and he loves the business, and he’s great at his character,” Lashley said.
Lashley then suggested the fight could still happen. “I wish we would have had the opportunity to fight. I mean, we still have some time. We’re both in great shape. You saw Brock. He looks like a million bucks,” he said. “I think we still have some time, so we can still book that for the fans.”
When the interviewer suggested Netflix could get involved, referencing the platform’s recent combat sports programming, Lashley agreed. “We can get on the Ronda-Gina card. That thing would do record numbers. I’m ready,” he said.
UFC Talks Never Materialized
Lashley revealed that there were preliminary conversations about him potentially joining the UFC after the promotion acquired Strikeforce, but the talks never progressed to a formal offer. He said his manager had a relationship with UFC president Dana White, and there were informal discussions.
“I don’t know if there was a direct conversation. I know that there was something where my manager is pretty close with Dana, and there was some kind of talks,” Lashley said. “But for me, I was at that time with TNA also. So I was like, I still want to pro wrestle. I still love pro wrestling. I wasn’t ready to dedicate my whole life to fighting, because if you do, that’s what you have to do.”
Lashley said his approach to MMA was always about feeding a competitive desire rather than building a full fighting career. “I wasn’t in the mindset of, hey, let me go and win titles. Let me just go have some good fights and go out there and feed that desire that I had to go compete,” he said.
He added that if he had been younger and in a different mindset, he likely would have pursued the UFC path. “If I was a little younger, I would have probably stayed in and went and fought and then went to the UFC, because that’s where you would want to go,” Lashley said.
Lashley said he may have one more fight left in him. “At the end of the day, I had a great time fighting, and I got maybe one more left in me,” he said.
Who Matches Lashley’s Intensity
Lashley was asked which wrestlers have matched his physical intensity in the ring. Rather than focusing solely on size, Lashley said he looks for a specific quality in an opponent’s eyes.
“There’s some guys, and you’re like, ‘Man, that guy has it,'” Lashley said. “You look in their eyes and you’re like, ‘Oh s**t, this is gonna be something different.’ And then there’s guys out there that you truly know they’re in there just for the entertainment. They try to act tough.”
Lashley named several performers who have that quality. “I’m gonna put Drew on the list, because I think Drew is incredible. He has that look. He has an intensity,” Lashley said. “Brock, of course. Roman has it. Bron Breakker, he has it. I haven’t been in the ring with him, but I can see it. The Street Profits. Austin Theory.”
Lashley also gave a shout-out to Lio Rush, calling him one of his favorite people in the business despite the obvious physical size difference between the two.
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