Bobby Lashley on His Career in GFW, WWE and MMA, Working With Trump

Bobby Lashley spoke to RealSport101 about a number of topics related to his professional wrestling and MMA career. He also speaks about working with current President of the United States Donald Trump at ‘WrestleMania 23.’

Lashley will be competing at the upcoming Destination X pay-per-view with GFW which prompeted the interview. We highly suggest you check the preview for the event below. Many matches are already confirmed for the night and it is definitely shaping up to be good, if not better than ‘Slammiversary 15.’ Lashley himself will definitely shine during the night.

GFW Destination X Pre-Show | Destination X LIVE Thursday, August 17th, 2017

Lashley first speaks about why he left GFW in the first place and what it was that made him decide to come back:

“I never really wanted to leave in the first place. In my first stint with GFW, we tried what we’re doing now. Before, no-one really knew the commitment needed to be able to do pro wrestling and MMA – no-one knew – and then when we found out it started becoming a little complicated. At one point I had to leave because I was pursuing MMA. Now, it’s different. There’s more communication and that’s the only way that I would be able to fight and do professional wrestling at the same time, if there’s communication and cooperation with each side. It’s been really easy lately because everybody understands and everybody sees the big picture. The fighting has been beneficial to my wrestling and the wrestling has been beneficial to my fighting so everybody is on board to make it come easily. I’m gonna continue to do it as long as I can. I know we’re dealing with something right now with whether or not I can devote enough time to be as successful as I possibly can in fighting… but we’ll figure that out. I’m just excited to have the opportunity to do it.”

He comments on Alberto El Patron being suspended and being stripped of the Unified GFW Championship:

“I don’t think it says anything about the company. We’re all individuals. If we go out there and do something we have to hold ourselves accountable for the things that we do. The company has to do what they have to do. It’s an unfortunate situation; I don’t know all of the details because I try to stay out of that. My business and my contract says for me to be a performer and do that part – not to do any of the backstage or office stuff. The one things I do know is, who needs the title? That’s me. Give me my title back. I could care less what’s going on with him. I’m just here to compete and now there’s an open title. That’s what I’m focussed on.”

On if GFW is the best place to be a wrestler right now:

“I wouldn’t say that it’s the best place but it’s a good place. We’ve had our ups and downs with things over the last couple of years but now we’re becoming stable and a lot of good guys are coming over; I think a lot of good guys are going to continue coming over because we have a good product. Everything’s running pretty smoothly right now and everybody is looking for a place – there are so many wrestlers out there – so GFW is another place for people to get on TV, be seen and have an opportunity to wrestle. I think a lot of people will be coming over and we’ll continue to do a lot better in the near, near future.”

He comments on being an alumni of WWE for a decade:

“Wow, ten years. Damn, it seems like a long time. It’s been a blur, man. My time since leaving WWE has been packed. I don’t really want to speak on leaving or anything like that; it was just one of those situations where I stepped away and I had another opportunity with fighting; I’ve put in 17 pro fights which I think is a really big accomplishment for myself. Those opportunities went really well and getting back into wrestling with Impact has gone really well. It’s one of those things where great things have been happening to me and I think I’m really blessed for the things that have happened to me in my life. As I look back, I wouldn’t change anything. WWE was an amazing experience for me and I accomplished some really huge things so I always look back at that time and smile. I have great friends from there and some of them I’m still working with now. Wrestling has been really, really good to me, so I’m happy with it.”

On working with Donald Trump at ‘WrestleMania 23’ a decade ago:

“No. It was a long time ago, over 10 years ago, and the time that I spent with Trump was really cool. The pay-per-view was phenomenal and just working with him was great. I have nothing bad to say about him.”

On what Ric Flair means to the professional wrestling business:

“I’ve been travelling so I don’t really know what’s going on with Ric but as far as what he’s done in this sport – he’s a pioneer of this sport. You can’t say professional wrestling and not have name like Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan and Rock, some of those names. It’s sad to hear that he’s going through this right now but it’s the Nature Boy… the guy survived a plane crash! He’s one of the toughest guys both inside and outside of the ring and he’s a person everybody looks up to. We’re all pulling for him and I hope everything goes well.”

Lashley comments next on working with GFW in India:

“India was great. India is always a great crowd. There are so many people in India and when we went over there you couldn’t get anywhere. They’ve been waiting for pro wrestling for a long time and they have their stars from India that are now wrestling in the United States so I think the fanbase has even grown. Our shows were incredible; it was an incredible experience across the board.”

He comments on having the opportunity to be Kurt Angle’s final match in GFW:

“I’ve done a lot of things in wrestling – big pay-per-views all across the world, from WrestleMania to everything else – but I put that match all the way at the top. Not at the top of everything but I think it’s my top two or three. Reason being, I’ve always looked up to Kurt. I was watching him when I was in high school wrestling and Kurt was winning nationals in college. When I went to college and was winning national championships, Kurt was winning the world and Olympic championships. I just kinda followed him all the way up. Afterwards when I was at the training centre, Kurt came to the Olympic training centre to do a vignette and Kurt is the one that found me. He said, ‘You ever think about professional wrestling?’ We talked for a little bit and I passed my number on. The rest is history. He’s the one that got me into professional wrestling. For 12 years I was in pro wrestling, Kurt and I never crossed paths… when I went to WWE, he went to TNA, when I went to TNA, he stepped out and was fighting, he came back and I was out and then I finally came back. This whole time he mentored me along the way, we would always talk to me on the phone and we’d talk about different matches and what to do and he’d just help me out with the politics of wrestling. Actually having an opportunity to wrestle him, towards the end, that was the one thing that I was pulling for so hard. I was telling them ‘if Kurt is getting ready to retire, you gotta get me in the ring with him.’ It was incredible. We had two big matches in each time it was like you were in the ring with your teacher. I like Kurt’s style, I mimic Kurt’s style to a certain extent so to me it was amazing.”

On his favorite match with GFW so far:

“Oh man, I can’t do it. There have been so many guys who I’ve had amazing matches with but my series with Bobby Roode – incredible. I think Bobby Roode is arguably one of the best wrestlers in the business today. He’s the total package. I wanna say really great things about him because I enjoyed wrestling with him. It was a very intense deal. Another one… Drew Galloway; when I had matches with Drew he gave me what I needed from professional wrestling. When I go out there and get into a match with somebody, I look in their eyes and I try to punk ‘em. I try to steal their soul and Drew had that look back where it was like ‘this guy might actually be crazy enough to throw down with me’ and that’s what it looked like in our matches. Our matches were trainwrecks. We were out there killing each other. He’s a big guy, he has a great look, I think he’s a superstar but then I’m not gonna take anything away from all the other guys that I’ve been in the ring with. EY – I think EY is amazing. Moose – amazing. Eli Drake… there’s just so many people that I can’t just pick one.  Austin Aries, Jeff Hardy – that was the first time I had the opportunity to wrestle Jeff, never did before and that was just crazy because it’s a whole different style of match. You talk about a guy that’s trying to kill himself to beat you… There are a lot of great guys and a lot of great wrestlers in Impact. I didn’t realise that before getting there. Another name – Eddie Edwards, being a smaller guy, bridged that gap on the size and made that match believable. People really believed that he was gonna beat me. I gave him a title once but then I took it back from him but people actually believed it. There’s just so many guys, I can’t just pick one.”

On how MMA has influenced his wrestling style:

“It just kinda gives me a different level. Everybody is out there learning the same thing, doing the same thing and with having an MMA background I throw some of that into my matches. I’ve going for a lot more submissions, I’m doing more striking, as opposed to just professional wrestling stuff. That gives the crowd something different to see and it gives me the edge. I enjoy fighting but if I don’t use my fighting in my wrestling then I’m doing myself a disservice. Wrestling has changed over the years. Before it was the big guy / bodybuilder look, now it’s completely changed. A lot of the wrestlers across the board are more athletic. That style is very similar to my MMA style so I don’t necessarily train for professional wrestling anymore. With MMA, you have your strength & conditioning and with wrestling you’re gonna use your various strikes and grappling, everything like that. My wrestling and MMA training is basically the same but, of course, when I have a fight coming up I’m gonna ramp it up a little bit and work a little bit more in depth on striking or something that will suit my fight but I don’t try to switch back and forth any more.”

He answers whether he has spoken with Mayweather or his camp:

“In all the time that I went down there and trained, I didn’t speak to Mayweather personally but his coaches and all of the guys down there feel really confident. I mean, it’s boxing. He’s going into boxing so he’s going to have a hard time regardless. It’s a hype match. I’m not saying Conor is going to do bad but he’s stepping into an area that he doesn’t really know too much about and I think Mayweather may expose him in a lot of areas. Even though people say that Mayweather doesn’t have finishing power, I still think this may be a finish for him. I think Mayweather may finish Conor in the fourth or fifth round.”

On success in both wrestling and MMA:

“I think it’s from professional wrestling over to the fight world. If you’re gonna go from pro wrestling into the fight world you have to have some kind of background. There’s some people that do, don’t get me wrong. Of course you have Brock with the [amateur] wrestling background, Shelton Benjamin, some of the other guys that are training right now have a little bit of the wrestling background. You can’t just be a professional wrestler and have nothing before that to be successful in fighting. It just takes too many years of training, learning and everything else like that to catch up. I think there’s the opportunity for some of the fighters to switch over because some of them have name value and they have a fanbase. Some of them have that wrestling background and when they come over they can learn the fireman’s carries and some of the throws that we do in professional wrestling the same way we do in amateur wrestling. If they find the right places where they can get the training, then I think there are some fighters that can switch over.”

He comments on potentially having a match against Brock Lesnar in MMA:

“There are two reasons that I expressed interest… one is that it would be a big money fight like everybody is talking about but two is because I thought I could win. I think I can win. I don’t know any other way to answer that question. I think it would be a good fight and I think a lot of people want to see it. I could post any picture today, even with my kids, and I’d have 10, 15, 20 people come on there and say ‘hey, we want you to come back to WWE’ or ‘hey, we want you to come back here but we all want you to fight Brock’. I think it’s a fight that needs to be made, eventually. Somehow, someway.”

He then comments on MMA fighters and wrestling stars calling one another out:

“It’s brilliant. I mean, it’s combat sports across the board. We’re both sports entertainment and there are only two major companies that are in the fight promotion, that’s Bellator and UFC – there are some other ones round there but those are the two major ones – so when people are leaving there or looking for another place to go, professional wrestling is a natural course. But like I said before, it takes a great deal of training. You can’t just be ‘I’ve fought before so I wanna be a professional wrestler’ and some of the people that have moved over have realised how tough it is to become a professional wrestler. That’s where the money is, though and everybody is going for those big money fights. That’s why Jon Jones is calling Brock out because he has a huge fanbase, and Ronda Rousey wants to keep her name value up so she’s gonna come over to professional wrestling. They’ll welcome them with open arms, everybody loves Ronda still and everybody wants to see the Jon Jones/Brock fight. It’s very intelligent for them to do that.”

What are your thoughts on what Lashley had to say? What is your takeaway from everything? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page or Twitter account. Additionally, you can find me on Twitter at @SOSNH1995. We also want to remind you that we have a Newsletter you can sign up to. This will allow us to send you the best news in one place via an email. We also have the Wrestling Rumors app that we encourage you all to download to get updates faster than they release on our various pages. It is available on Android and iOS devices.