Bobby Lashley talks Bellator 162, future of TNA Impact Wrestling
Bellator MMA and TNA Impact Wrestling star Bobby Lashley sat down to talk about his upcoming co-main event and the future of his professional wrestling employer
Bobby Lashley is quite the busy man these days. At the moment, he’s currently preparing to take part in a heavyweight bout in the co-main event of Bellator 162 against Josh Appelt, and in addition to that, he’s also a regular member of the TNA Impact Wrestling roster where he recently served as their heavyweight champion for a time.
Despite that rigorous schedule, Lashley was kind enough to sit down with FanSided and speak on a number of topics including that co-main event of Bellator 162, the future of TNA Impact Wrestling, Brock Lesnar and more.
Jack Jorgensen: Bobby, first off, thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to sit down and talk with us about all you have coming up. Now you’re in the co-main event of the Bellator 162 card that’s coming up soon, and you’re doing quite well for yourself in the MMA world with your current seven-fight win streak. How do you see this fight with Josh Appelt playing out? And to that point, what are your aspirations in the Bellator heavyweight division from there?
Bobby Lashley: Well my aspirations for this fight coming up is just to fight as well as I can. My trainer partner told me that we’re not gonna be able to do this forever, so while we can, we might as well do as much as we can; I just wanna fight until I can’t anymore.
With Bellator right now, since the heavyweight division is open, as far as the [vacant] title, the next few fights after this one could open the door to potential title contention. And I want Bellator to say that I can hold that heavyweight title. There’s some guys in there that are doing some good things, guys in there that are pretty tough, but I think I can be right in line to win the title. Hopefully within the next few months we can decide what they’re gonna do with that tournament to find a home for that belt, and hopefully my name is attached to it.
JJ: While you generally don’t always have a choice in the matter, and it might not really matter to you either way, is there anyone in particular that you might like to face for the chance to be called the Bellator heavyweight champion?
BL: It doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters in that game is pain and money. We all bust our ass as fighters and ultimately we wanna be compensated for it. It doesn’t really matter whose name’s attached to it.
Now, there’s some good fighters out there that I would love to be able to fight, and I’m not sure that their names are gonna be attached to that heavyweight tournament, but someone like Fedor [Emelianenko] would be an awesome fight to have. It’s not really something where I’m calling him out, I just think it’s amazing what he’s done for MMA — just all the things that he’s brought to the game, I would love to be able to get into the cage with him.
JJ: As the closest rival there is right now to the juggernaut that is the UFC, how far can you see the Bellator company growing in the coming years?
BL: I really see it growing fast. I mean, Scott [Coker]’s brilliant when it comes to promotions of these fights. We’ve had our ups and downs, I mean there were some down fights, but it’s starting to build back up. We’re picking up guys like Chael [Sonnen] and Rory MacDonald, and these guys are coming over because, ultimately, fighters wanna be taken care of. There’s a lot that goes into fights, not even just the physical aspect, but it’s the mental aspect.
We all work for a company that goes through and says, “Look, we want to make sure that you guys are taken care of and are compensated for your hard work.” It gives guys a reason to jump ship and come over to Bellator.
So I think with the guys coming over and some bigger names coming in, and also just all the shows that they’ve been having, they’ve made some great connections with some great areas and venues and things like that. We’re expanding so fast and going overseas, and just getting all over the place, I think that this company is really, really gonna grow and it’s gonna be a strong company within the next couple years.
JJ: You made a big name for yourself early on because you made the jump from the world of professional wrestling to the world of MMA. Another competitor who recently tried to make this transition was a guy affectionately known as CM Punk. However, it didn’t really work out all that well for him, as we saw. Do you think Punk should continue to pursue this MMA career, as it’s speculated he’s going to, or do you think he might want to look at the prospects of heading back to pro wrestling? Furthermore, should he still go the MMA route, would Bellator maybe be a better fit?
BL: It really all depends on where he’s at. I can’t really say what Punk should do, but what I think he should do is I think he should go and get to training again. I think he should take another fight, but win that fight.
You see, you don’t wanna go into a fight, lose, and then just walk out of the game altogether; that’s not the best thing to do. I think you need to stand there, prove yourself and get the win. And then after you get that win, then you need to make the determination as to whether or not you wanna quit and hang up your gloves.
I think with wrestling — wrestling’s always gonna be good for him. I don’t even know if it’s so much going back to Vince McMahon, but if Punk steps on any kind of circuit, people are gonna go and pay to see him. If Vince sees that there’s money in him once again, then Vince will scoop him right back up. Wrestling is something that CM Punk can do any time.
Ultimately, in MMA, he just needs to come away with a victory, though.
JJ: Now of course, another pro wrestler/MMA star that we can’t ignore is Brock Lesnar — someone that you’re compared to a lot. Now my question for the subject of Brock is something a little different that I am personally curious about. If you had the choice, since you’re in both fields as well, to wrestle Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania inside an enormous stadium or battle him inside the cage, which would you choose?
BL: Which one pays me more [Laughs]?
JJ: But in all seriousness, how open would you be to stepping foot inside the cage with Brock Lesnar for a heavyweight showdown that a lot of us would be looking forward to?
BL: Yeah, I think it’d be a great matchup. It’s hard because the critics are gonna say, “Well, Brock is big, and Brock’s gonna do this, and Brock’s gonna do that …” Well, okay, that’s what you think.
You know, I’ve been training for a long time and this isn’t just something that I go back and forth with. I’ve been a student of the game for a long time. Some of the ways that he’s been beating other people are not gonna be the ways that he’s gonna beat me. My wrestling game is really, really strong, so I’m not just gonna let myself get taken down to get stuck down there and get bashed up. So, it’d be a different kind of fight, and if it’s a different kind of fight, who really knows who’s gonna win?
Hell, I don’t know who’s gonna win in two weeks. I’m really not gonna say that I can win the fight, and I’m not gonna say that Brock can win the fight. I think that it’d be a good fight, and in the end it would be fun to find out who ultimately does win, but I wouldn’t just get taken down to the ground and get bashed up — that just wouldn’t happen.
JJ: Flipping to the professional wrestling side of your career, you’re one of the top guys in TNA Impact Wrestling at the moment and have been for a while. Now there have been a lot of rumors on the internet recently about the future in the company, but we’re not gonna delve into those. I’m just gonna ask you how far you believe TNA Impact Wrestling can go in the near future. Let’s say next year at this time, for example, we talk again — where is the company?
BL: Well, I think it all depends on the kinds of decisions they make within the next couple weeks. They can make bad decisions and we can start to fizzle, or they can make some damn right decisions and we can prosper, and that’s what it all boils down to. You have to make the right decisions, and at times I scratch my head and say, “What are we doing?!” but sometimes I’m looking and I’m saying, “Man, this is awesome!”
Like, we bring on different people, like Cody Rhodes coming in, Miracle [Mike Bennett], and Moose coming in; we have the Hardys and what they’ve been doing. If there’s some good names, man, there’s some really cool things that can happen with wrestling.
That kind of excites me because sometimes we throw stuff out there and it’s like, “Oh, why did we do that?!” But I’m not the one that’s writing and I’m not the one that’s watching the ratings on a regular basis, I’m just the one that’s out there in the ring and I feel what the crowds telling me. I don’t read the “dirtsheets” or anything like that. But sometimes if things don’t feel good I do have an opinion on them and then I hope that we can stop doing those things that don’t feel good.
We have the talent, so we just have to do the right things with the talent in order to be successful. And if we do, I think we can make a huge move. There’s some really cool guys out there who we can mix things up with and have some fun. Hell, you know what, Ryback’s out there. I’m not saying go grab Ryback, but I would love to have a match with that guy. I mean, it’s different — something different.
But it’s the same thing kinda what Bellator is doing right now. Bellator’s making some of the right moves, so some of the guys from that big organization in the UFC are coming over because they’re like, “Man, there’s something good over there and I want to be a part of it.” That’s what we need to do with TNA. If we start putting on the better product, then some of these guys that are fed up with being on the road all the time, fed up with the politics and are just fed up with all the different things in that realm — if they say they can’t take it anymore and they start moving over here, that could be a possibility. And that’s not necessarily to say that we need those guys, we have the guys, like I said.
That’s not a knock on WWE either; I love WWE. I’m still benefitting from WWE to this day, Good things can happen when everyone sees that things are happening both ways when competition is involved. What happens is WWE steps their game up, and if WWE steps their game up, that brings the whole wrestling business up, which ultimately means TNA goes up.
So I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I think the next few months are gonna dictate a lot
JJ: Now to elaborate on the direction of TNA, one of the people making some big-time decisions that could affect the future of the company is Billy Corgan, who gets some mixed reviews from critics. What’s your view on the way Corgan approaches the day-to-day operations in TNA?
BL: I think one thing that I do like about him is that he’s not a know-it-all and he doesn’t come across that way. If you know wrestling, you have your opinion on where you want things to go and what would be good, and you put together a story. After you put together that story, when you present that to the talent, if the talent’s not feeling that story, then the story’s not gonna work.
Right now, I think the good thing about Billy is that he keeps his door open because if we don’t like it, or if things are just not right, he’ll listen; he’s really open to suggestions. Like, the stuff with Matt Hardy and the “Delete” and all this crazy stuff, that’s their baby, because he trusts them and he allows them to have some creative liberties with that storyline. That’s why it’s been doing so well. It’s not just him writing it down, he can aid to it. He actually sits back and says, “I don’t know it all, I do love wrestling, I am a wrestling fan, I’ve run a successful promotion — but I will give you guys the opportunity to say why something doesn’t work and I’ll consider it.”
So that’s what I really like about him.
JJ: Bobby, I wanna thank you again for your time. Before we let you go, give people some information on how they can watch you compete in the co-main event of Bellator 162 against Josh Appelt as you continue your quest for the Bellator heavyweight title.
BL: It’s Spike TV and it’s gonna take place on October 21, and I’m sure there’s gonna be a tremendous amount of build-up before it. You just have to keep your eyes plugged on Spike. Because we have fights every week, all people have to do is tune in every Friday and they will see what’s going on with Bellator.
But I’m going out there on October 21 in Memphis, Tennessee to do some business.
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