In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet on the Insight podcast, AEW star Bobby Lashley opened up about his career, reflecting on some of the most significant moments from his time in WWE, his experience wrestling Brock Lesnar, and much more. Lashley discussed his journey in professional wrestling, his evolution as an athlete, and the impact of his high-profile matches. He also shared insights into his famous feuds, including his rivalry with Brock Lesnar, and how he felt about the opportunities and challenges that came with those storylines. Below are some key highlights from the in-depth conversation with Bobby Lashley, provided by Insight:
Bobby Lashley on his viral cage dive onto Umaga:
“I was just telling somebody about this two days ago and he said the same thing. So certain things you can’t practice, you know you’re not going to be able to practice. It was, again, Vince, because he was knee-deep in that role, that was his role. So since it was his feud, he wanted to make sure everything was moving in the right direction. We were having that cage match against Bob Holly and there was something where they wanted me to do something with the cage or throw it on top of him or something like that. And then I was like I’ll just jump into it. They were like, well, that might be hard to do. Because if you think about it, we have a match in there, so we’re going to be throwing each other against that cage anyway. We can’t just keep it loose so you touch it and it falls, so they have to buckle it. So he was like, ‘Okay, you’re having a match first off. Then in order to jump this thing, you have to jump over the top rope and hit it. You got to hit it hard.’ I was like ok, what are you saying here? And then Vince comes out. Vince was like, ‘You can jump over that top rope?’ I was like, yes, yes, I can. So I was like I don’t see what I could do wrong, I can jump over the top rope and if I have to jump hard, I probably have to hit this one and build up speed to be able to do it. They said, ‘Well, when we go out there, it’s on you, because that thing is latched. So if you don’t knock it over and go, you’re just gonna jump up and hit it.’ Which would have been horrible. And I think I would have been in a whole different place in my career if that would have happened. But that’s how it is. It wasn’t one of those things where I stayed home and practiced it or anything like that. It was just the moment with the adrenaline and everything, it had to be done, so I made it happen. I looked at him and I didn’t know how I was gonna do it. I just took off, I ran and I jumped. All I knew was I’m gonna hit that thing as hard as I can. Then when I hit it, it broke. I was like oh it broke, but I don’t know where I’m going. I didn’t know if I was gonna bounce, fall on him, land on him, I didn’t know anything. Then when we hit and rolled I was like I am completely ok. Yes! Most of the time that’s what we do, we do that system check. But that’s where I was.”
Bobby Lashley on the love triangle angle with Rusev and Lana :
“It could have been [uncomfortable] if I worked with someone else. I can say this, and I’ve said this several times before, but then again I’m very positive with everything. But I can honestly say it was 100% Lana that was able to make me feel comfortable doing it and then just try to do things to really further that whole feud. She was on top of everything. She was always like, ‘Alright, I got a photographer over here. We need to walk so the people see us together, so it’s not like something where they’re just like, oh, they don’t care about it.’ So I was like, alright, but all I’m thinking about is who am I supposed to wrestle or go smash? She’s like, ‘No, we need to come over here and take these pictures. We need to go do this.’ She was like, pulling me in all these different directions. And I was just like ‘Are you cool with all this?’ She’s like, yes, because she knows acting and she’s able to put herself into characters. Lana is a sweetheart, and I know that some people were hard on her because it seems like she tries too much, she tries too hard, and sometimes it comes as not sincere to people and I think some people kind of jumped on her about it. But working with her, I think she’s a sweetheart and she really helped me feel comfortable in that role. I had nothing but respect for her for going through it, because she kept it very respectful. I was working with her and her husband, and she understood what the plan was, so she wanted to play her part.”
Bobby Lashley on finally wrestling Brock Lesnar:
“I wanted to do a lot more with it. I wish we could have really done the things that we could have and should have wanted to do with that. I think people could have really got sold into just us training to fight each other and some of the heat that we could have brought. Brock was a natural bully, but in this sense he was kind of a babyface, because he was that guy coming back and forth and I was a heel at the time. But it could have showed how we prepared for a fight with each other and it could have showed something different. It could have been so much like the Rocky story. Hell, if they wanted to, they could have put us two together and kind of ran as Road Warriors for a while. I even went to a point where I was like, man, wouldn’t it be cool that they would have brought us both back here and then put us together, had Paul Heyman find a way to put us both together, and then the whole time we win tag team titles and he keeps referring to I got the greatest fighter in the world and the greatest tag team. Then it got to a point like, who do you keep talking about as the greatest fighter? Because you’re only saying one person. So that could have built some natural animosity there. And it’s like, hold on a second man, I know you and Brock have this history, but you keep saying you have the greatest fighter and the greatest tag team. So Who are you referring to? And it could have been my ego got in the way or something like that, whatever it was, whatever it did, but it brought us apart. Because they always said some of the best feuds are the people that were together first, and something brought us apart. Could have been. I don’t know if we could have put us two together as a tag team, because it might have been too dominant, but I still see there were some people in there that we could have had great fights with and great matches with if we needed to.”
