Bobby Lashley took some time out of his day to speak with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated about a wide range of topics.
During the interview, he talked about his storyline with Lana and Rusev over the past few months on WWE television as well as the feedback from fans about it.
Lana aligned with Lashley to feud with Rusev on television. Although Rusev and Lana are married in real life, WWE did an angle where they got divorced on television.
It ultimately led to a Tables Match that saw Rusev beat Lashley at the WWE TLC pay-per-view event in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Target Center on the WWE Network last month.
This past Monday on Raw, Lashley and Lana were “married” on television.
“Yes, I’ve experienced a tremendous amount of hate. We as a society come out and we’re anti-bullying, anti-hate, anti-this, anti-that, but I think we actually pick and choose who we hate and bully. Because everybody still knows me, and knows what I do and what I’m capable of doing—what I’ve done in my career as far as the military, being a single father, putting myself through college, graduating with honors, and I could keep going. But I received a tremendous amount of hate here across the board personally for the things that, I guess, I do. It’s all over the board.”
“It’s from the fact that this is interracial, because I’ve had guys saying the n-word to me and, ‘I’m going to kill you, we’re going to get you when you come down south.’ I just kind of sit back and laugh about it. I’ve even experienced some people that are in the business of wrestling—tweeting things and posting pictures, and I just sit back and laugh. A lot of times we feel that the person being hated on or being bullied should be a frail person. But now you take somebody like myself and Lana, who is a gorgeous woman, and we don’t look like the typical people that are bullied. I’m glad I have thick skin. Because if I didn’t have thick skin, some of the things that I’ve had to experience would be very difficult to take.”
