Up On Game Presents BURN FACTORY Featuring WWE Star Bobby Lashley "I Almost Got Murdered"

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to The Burn Factory Podcast with Priest and Phoenix Rivera.
Listen as the voice interview the biggest names and sports
and entertainment The Burn Factory start Snow.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
That is up, guys, Welcome back to another episode of
The Burn Factory Podcast. I'm your host, Priest, jump by
my co host, my brother, the one and only Phoenix
saves up.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
For the cameras. What's up of y'all? This is called
the Burn Factory for a reason.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I was literally caught on fire, fifty percent chance to survive,
but through that started this podcast because I believe every
single person out there on this planet goes through.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
A burn moment somewhere in their life.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
You heard pre say a burn moment s A burn
moment is a very hard time in your life that
you just have to fight and get through. And me
and Priest believe that every single person on this earth
go through little burn moments that truly make them who
they are.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
But what a special guest we have today.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Our guest is a two time WWE World Champion. He's
a two two time ECW World Champion, He's a two
time WWE Intercontinental Champion, and a three time WWE United
States champion. Not only that, he is a phenomenal collegiate wrestler,
he was a three time nai A National champion, and

(01:17):
to top it off, he was an amazing mixed martial artist.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
So please give a warm welcome to Bobby Lashly.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
I feel special with that introduction.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Welcome, I had to do a big He sounds like
Bruce Buffer over here right now.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm coming for his job. Now you should get in there.
At some point, they got to retire.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
I don't know. I don't know if I could. I
don't know if I could do that. That's not my role,
that's not my gig. He's announcing he is special. Now
I have to develop my own thing of like his was.
It's time and developing my own thing would be diff difficult.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
So Bobby, I gotta ask you, how do I look
like you? What do I need to eat?

Speaker 5 (01:58):
Lift?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Come on?

Speaker 4 (01:59):
What?

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Years and years of dedication? I mean I started out
when I was little and just working out, working out
because I was small. I was small in high school.
My firshm ye in high school weighed ab one hundred
and ten pounds, so I was one of the small guys.
I was a small guy on the wrestling team, and
then I just kept getting bigger and bigger. I didn't
start actually putting on weight until I went to Olympic
Training Center. So that was even after college, because in
college I wrestled at one sixty seven, and then my

(02:22):
senior year I wrestled at one eighty four, and I
went to Olympic Training Center, I wrestled one eighty seven
and then jumped up to two eleven or yet two
eleven at the time ninety six kilos.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Wow, so you gained what thirty pounds over one year?

Speaker 5 (02:36):
What a difference? Well not actually, because it with wrestling,
as you know, you cut a whole bunch of weight.
So I was kind of a tremendous amount of weight
to make it down in one eighty seven, and then
it just got to a point where I was like,
I can't do it anymore, so so I went up
and there was no weight class in between. That was
a big That was a big hurdle for me because
at one age seven and a half and then he

(02:56):
had two eleven. If you look at some of the
smaller weight classes, they're every five pounds, but for me,
it was a big jump. So it's either cut all
the way down to one eighty seven or go with
the big boys. And I decided to go with the
big boys at the end of my career.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
How hard was that?

Speaker 5 (03:10):
Not at all? It was. It was easy because one
when I was growing up, I didn't have too much,
you know, so we were I don't want to say poor,
but we just did half off. So nutrition wasn't there.
I didn't really work out as much. When I went
to Olympic Training Center. We had Olympic training, we had
we had treins conditioning, we had all the food you

(03:32):
can eat, great food up there at the Olympic trains.
So I just naturally started putting on weight. And then
just knowing training different and just having different coaches and everything,
it just made a huge difference in that transition from
one eighty seven to eleven.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
What age did you start really putting on a lot
of weight?

Speaker 5 (03:51):
Shoot, I was probably twenty three, twenty four.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Okay, yeah, I got some time. I can do that.
But Bobby are actually leading us right into B beginning.
So on our podcast we do use the acronym burn
so each letter is a different time in your life,
so B stands for beginning. Take us back to the beginning.
Take us back to your childhood. What was it like
growing up and were there some burn moments that you
had to overcome?

Speaker 5 (04:18):
I would say probably. So, I mean I grew up
my dad was an army, so we grew up traveling
all over the place. My parents originally from Panama, so
they came here to the United States. So English was
their second language. So when we came here, it was
just traveling. And I mean we lived in Kansas starting out.
Then I moved over to Germany. Then I started school

(04:40):
in Germany, and then we came back to Kansas again.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
So what made you go to Germany for a couple
of times?

Speaker 5 (04:47):
That's where my dad was stationed. Okay, yeah, so we
get stationed there for four years, which was a great
experience for me. I loved it in Germany. And then
we came back to Kansas, and I guess when I
really started taking up and wrestling. My parents got a divorce.
My dad moved and I was living with me and
my sisters were living with my mom in Kansas. So

(05:09):
it was a little challenging for us because, like I said,
English was our parents' second language, so my mom didn't
really have like a really good education. So she was
just working at like kind of gas stations on posts,
so she wasn't making a lot of money. So we
didn't have We didn't have very much at all. So
at that point I just put all my energy into

(05:29):
working out. That's where it all started out. So I
remember the first time when I did it was a
we were cause I was like one of the football
players and I was starting running back, so I was
kind of one of the stars on the team a
little bit. And when we came up our freshman year,
our coach was like, all right, I'm gonna teach you
guys how to start lifting. So it was the first
time we left. And of course when you go into
high school, the first lift they have you do bench

(05:51):
for us. Yeah, so I was a skinny kid. I
was like, I don't want to do this. I stay away.
But there was like six of us in the room.
They put some weight to on and they put twenty
fives on each side, so ninety five pounds. First guy
comes up, he knocks it out a few times. I
think I knocks it out, knocks it out, and as
everybody starts doing it, I'm like, oh later, And I

(06:13):
remember when that happened. I went under that bench and
I took it off and boom dropped on my chest
and I couldn't get it off. Oh and that was like,
it was heartbreaking because I was like one of the
stars and the team. But then when we had this
little bitty challenge here, huge failure. And from that point on,
that's when I kind of started working out on my own.
I wasn't doing it any practice, or wasn't doing it

(06:34):
at school. I was doing it at home like I
was doing push ups. I was running like crazy and
everything like that, and I never wanted to get embarrassed
like that. Again.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
That's the burn moment right there.

Speaker 5 (06:43):
That was my mini burn.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
So what got you into wrestling?

Speaker 5 (06:50):
I started in seventh grade because we had football. Of
course the football season and then the next season was
wrestling or basketball. And of course I was gonna played
basketball because everybody was, but we didn't have basketball for
seventh graders. So my football coach was a wrestling coach,
and he's like, come on, he said, you should try
it out. I'll just come to practice. If you like it,

(07:11):
then we can keep going, but if not, at least
give it a shot. So I went to practice, didn't
do anything, just kind of sat around, and then I
was like, all right, I'll try it out. And then
second time I came, I practiced a little bit, and
I was kind of good at the beginning. But I
was small because my seventh grade year, I think I
wrestled at eighty four pounds. And the thing that I got,

(07:34):
the thing the reason why I took off in wrestling
is because in football, everybody was bigger. In wrestling, I
got people my own size. So that's why I was
killing people my own size. Because if football you run
through the middle linebackers there are two hundred pounds. He
could just beat you up. And I was getting beat
up a lot in football. But in wrestling, I'd go
against guys my same size. So that's when I really

(07:55):
kind of took off.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
So did you play football all the way up until
your senior year or did you give it up and
starting full on for wrestling.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
I started wrestling full time probably my junior year. Junior
so my freshman sophomo year, I still played football.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Was it hard to leave football behind?

Speaker 5 (08:09):
Yeah? Yeah, it was tough. But our team, but I
mean our team wasn't very good and we didn't have
really good coaches either, so there was no real push
effort to keep me in there. Now, my wrestling coach,
my wrestling coach was a huge mentor of mine, so
I sticked with wrestling, and he just he was right
there with us the entire time. He would he would
drive us to wrestling tournaments on the over the summer break,

(08:33):
and he was always he was almost like a mentor
to me because my dad was gone, so he was
kind of the person that we would always talk to
and kind of kept everybody together. And he was that
male figure for myself and a lot of other guys
on our team.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Do you still keep up with him to this day?

Speaker 5 (08:49):
Yeah, every time I go home, we call him up,
we go have a drink, good talk.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
That's cool. And he was in Kansas as well.

Speaker 5 (08:55):
MH.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Is he still there's still there?

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (08:58):
Still there. Just retired a couple of years ago. But
he was a good dude.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Do you think if you didn't meet him your life
would be completely different.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
I mean that's a tough question because it could have been.
It could have been because I might have been a
different direction. I knew that I had something. I was
a very athletic kid. Everything that I did, I was
like one of the kids that was picked first or
something like that. I was fast, I was very athletic,
so I knew it was something. But if it weren't
for him, it might not have been wrestling because he

(09:30):
was the one that kind of pushed me into it
and then he kept me honest and he was just
kind of like that role model for me. If it
was a football coach, I might have went football out,
you know, I never know. And then I did track
and I played baseball. Also, baseball was my first love.
But when I got up, you know, into high school,
that's when I stopped because we didn't really have a
good baseball program. There was nobody really there. So after

(09:53):
wrestling season, I just kept wrestling.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
It helps you for football too. The two sports. I
go hand in hand.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
Oh yeah, without a doubt.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
So then you grow onto wrestling in college. So what
was that transition like from high school wrestling to college
wrestling in your time there?

Speaker 5 (10:08):
College wrestling was a big jump. It was a big jump.
I went to a small school because being in Kansas,
we didn't have a lot of eyes on us, so
we weren't like that powerhouse state that a lot of
Division one colleges were looking at. So when I was
weeks away from going to college, I was going to

(10:28):
go into the military because my dad was in the
military and everybody else in my family was in the military.
So I was just going to follow everybody else's lead.
And like two weeks before school, I got a call
and coach from Missouri Valley called me up and said, hey,
we want to offer you a scholarship, and I was like,
you know what it was about. He just told me

(10:50):
some numbers, and then I remember afterwards a couple of
my friends called me up. They said, oh, you're going
you got a scholarship, So yeah, Missouri Valley, I said, Oh,
what's the mascot else? I don't know, I don't know
where's it at. I don't know, I don't know. This
guy just called me. So he's going to call back
later on and we're going to seal the deal and
I'm gonna go up there in two weeks and start wrestling.

(11:10):
So that's how it happened. I mean, I just go
a lot of things that happened in my life were
just here's an opportunity to take it go and run
with it. Wow, all the way through, it's been like that.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
So did you even want to wrestle in college at all?
Or did you just want to go straight to the Army.

Speaker 5 (11:26):
I didn't know. I really didn't know, because coming out
of high school, I didn't like I wasn't gonna be
able to afford going to college, and I didn't want
to just be one of the guys that just stayed
in town and worked. So I was like, well, I mean,
I was successful in wrestling. I went State, took second
my junior year, but I was like, I wasn't really

(11:46):
sought after by any major colleges because nobody came to
Kansas to look. So I was like, well, I go
to the I was going to the Marines because the
Marines was a tougher branch of service, I thought, so
I was going to go into the Marines and then
just make my way from there. I really just honed
in on college. I mean, I was getting great grades
and then everything just's our team. Just we just had

(12:09):
a really good team. Because the team that I want
to before I got there, we took like thir like
twentieth or thirtieth in the nation. So we weren't even
a team that was on the map. But the year
that I went there, we just all came together. There
was a lot of really good wrestlers on our team.
I took fourth my freshman year and our team was
in the top ten, so we made a huge jump.

(12:30):
And then the next year after that, my sophomore year,
I won Nationals and our team won Nationals. Then my
junior year I won it, my team won it, and
then my senior year, I think my team took second
and I won it for my third time. So it
was just a really good group of guys, and I
had opportunities to leave my senior year, but it was
it was it was challenging. I had some bouts with

(12:52):
my coaches, but I mean, ultimately I wanted to get
my degree, so I was like, we get an opportunity
to wrestle everyone anyway, because with wrestling, we don't have
that division where if you're junior college, if you're ANAIA
for your Division two, you only play those. We would
go to open tournaments all the time, so we get
to I got to test myself against anyone in the country.
That's why afterwards, when I went to Olympic training, center.

(13:14):
I already wrestled most of those guys, so I was
right in line to get right back in there to
do something big and make that run for the potential Olympics.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
Was that always the goal, just go to the Olympics
When I got into college, Yes, when he got into college. Yeah,
what was that point that you're like, you know what, man,
I can actually make a run at this Olympics and
I can make the team.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
It was when I was at I was at the
Olympic training Center, and when I was at one eighty seven,
I was I was on the ladder, but I was like,
I think I took fifth at national that year. But
it was I mean I was cutting a lot a
lot of way. It was. It was. It was challenging.
It was very challenging. So I don't think I wrestled
as good as I could have because just cutting a

(13:54):
lot of weight and trying to get there and trying
to get down and then everything and just moving into
freestyle from legit and folks are wrestling. It was a
big jump. But the next year, when I actually bumped
up to two eleven, that's when I felt like, Okay,
my body felt out, I feel good. Everything's going right.
And then I actually took third at the World Team
Trials that year, and that's when I was like, all right,

(14:16):
here's time. I can make it run now. I mean,
it was, it was. It would have been a tough
weight class because that year Cormier actually won it. But really, yeah, yeah,
that's right. Yeah, me and Cormier, we trained together. We
trained at the same time. We didn't train together.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
What was that like? Though trained with Daniel Cormier.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
He always went when we were at the Olympic training
Center since I was an Army team. We all trained together,
but he would always train with Mola Wall from Belator.
Those two were buddies, so that he would always train
with him, and then I would train with my partner
and they liked to stick together, so I didn't get
to actually train with him that much. I trained with
Kerry McCoy, which was a heavyweight and Carrie was a

(15:02):
multiple time Olympian and multiple time national champion. Carrie was
a bad boy, but Cormier used to try to like
keep some distance. I think especially we were in the
same weight class, so of course you don't want to
be practicing with somebody that you're probably gonna be in
the tournament with later, So he kind of.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Kept was he just not like you or something?

Speaker 5 (15:25):
Or No, we were real cool. I mean after practice,
we all hung out, we all joked around, talked and
everything like that.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
But interesting, he's a little scared. He felt some competition.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
I'm just gonna say, Uh, I think a lot of
times people would do that because at the Olympic Training Center,
people would come from everywhere and they would come with
their teams. They're like, there's all kinds of teams that
would come from other places, but they would come to
Olympic Training Center to train, and a lot of times
people would kind of pair up with who they were
working with because of course we're all in the same
weight class. A lot of people are in the same

(15:56):
weight class. You don't want to just be training with
the person that you're gonna wrestling with that week or
even at nationals or at the World team trials. So
some people liked kind of kept distance.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Do you think you would have got him if he
would have wrestled him in the house.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
We had talked about it, Yeah, talked so what kind
of talks.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Uh, We wrestled once he won, he won it was
a close match. It would have been an interesting match.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Wow, were you guys like the kind of the same
exact weight.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
Or yeah, yeah, he's he's a little shorter, a little more,
kind of a little chubbier. But I mean he was
so he was good. I'm not gonna take anything away
from me. He's a good friend of mine. But and
he was he was tough. So, I mean he he
handled everybody else, but we only had one chance to wrestle.

(16:48):
I would have liked to wrestled him more, but just
didn't work out that way.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
So, actually, after the Olympic Training Center, that's when he
started going into pro wrestling. So what spiked that interest
for you for maybe going after that?

Speaker 5 (17:02):
It's here's a crazy story, here's my burm moment. It was.
It was a crazy story for me. So so I
went up to two eleven that year and I was
at the Olympic Training Center. And when I was at
the Olympic Training Center, Kurt Angle came because Kurt Angle
was in ww at the time, and he came there
to do a vignette for the WWE. And when he

(17:24):
came there, we were all training and Kurt came up
to me. He was like, hey, man, you got a
pretty good look. You ever think about doing pro wrestling?
And I was like, and I was a big fan
of Kurt. I was a big fan of Kurt from
from college, from high school and the Olympics because he
won the Olympics with a broken neck. Kurt was a
beast before, so I was like, man, me and him
talked for a little while, and I was like, you know,

(17:45):
right now, my sights are set for the Olympics. It
was two It would have been a two thousand and
four Olympics, So I was like, you know, I still
want this goal. He said, but let's let's exchange numbers
and just keep in touch and maybe after that, after
the Olympic Trials or Olympics, you can come up and
do something with us. So we just changed numbers, and

(18:08):
then I went to the World Team trials, and then
after the World Team Trials, I was I was personal
training at the time and a client didn't show up,
and then I went to go put some money in
a bank. So I went to the bank and as
I walked up to the bank, there's like three guys
standing off on the side, and normally me, I just

(18:30):
see the guys. It was up, you know, walking the bank,
and then I walked into the first part and I
take some money out of the ATM. And as soon
as I took the money out of there, I walked
through the other door and got in the line. So
how the tailors are. The tailers are kind of rounded
in front, and then everybody was standing in line and
I got to the back of the line. The minute
I got in the back of the line, I heard
this big boom boom, And what happened. These three guys

(18:52):
that were in there came kicked the door down and
they're firing. And I later saw the video, like I
cur like this. So this guy actually I don't know
if he was doing it on purpose or his gun
just went off, but his gunlet shot just went like
right over my shoulder. I took a dive down to
the ground and I was laying down on the ground
there when all this was happening. Everybody was screaming. These

(19:14):
guys were jumping over tables and going through and it
was quiet for a while and then you're another shot
and I started moving forward. Now at this point, I
was thinking. When I walked in, I saw everyone and
there was like a bunch of women there and me.
So I was like, man, I'm laying down on the ground,

(19:36):
and I said, I'm just a target here. These guys
want to start like firing and killing people. Probably take
out the biggest threat first. That's kind of what I
was thinking the whole time I'm laying down there. I
was like, man, it's not supposed to. I'd like this,
it's not supposed to. I'm like this. That's how I
was what I was going through my head the whole time,
because I just had this good tournament at the World
Team Trials and then everything's kind of moving in the

(19:58):
right direction. I felt good, you know, it had a
good morning, and I walked into the bank and then
all these all the starts happening. So laid there for
a little while. They stayed for yelled, stole a bunch
of money, and they ran out. As soon as they
ran out, they locked the door from the inside and
everybody started getting up. And when I got up, my

(20:20):
knee was like huge. It got a little beat up
from wrestling, you know, because you normally just get a
little bumps and bruises, but this time my knee is
like huge. At this point, and Amberlets came. I didn't
want to go with them, just went home and I
was like, I can't believe all that happened. But I
had to go to the hospital that week and they

(20:42):
checked my knee and I completely just completely ruptured my
burst a sack when he was like smashed. And the
national tournament was like eight months away and then Olympic
trials would have been ten months ro or something like that.
So they told me that I had to surgery on it.
So I was like, man, all this time, all this

(21:03):
time that I've been working, getting close to the Olympics,
I finally get in a weight class, finally moved up
to a weight class I feel good at, and then
this happens. So we had the surgery and they said
the surgery is going to be about six month rehab.
So I'm just doing the math here. I was like, well,
two months before nationals and I could still make it.
I just had to go through with this and start rehabbing.

(21:24):
I said, if he says six months, I'm not the
normal person. So I'm going to get done four months.
And I'll say have four months to get ready, And
you know, at that level, that time is valuable. So
that already decreased my odds of making the team big
time already just from having that surgery. So I had
the surgery, came out of the surgery, and then I
was just like, man, we got to get this thing together.

(21:45):
We got to get this thing fixed. So I was
doing rehab, but I couldn't walk because I had this
straight laid cast on. So I was like hobble on
a crutches to rehab, trying to get this thing together.
Then like maybe a month after it, my knee starts
like just pounding again, pounding again, huge infection. And what
happened was they end up leaving something in my knee,

(22:09):
so it gets it got infected. They had to go
back in tear through everything again. And then at that point,
now we're I think we're six months out of world
teams or Olympic trials and like four months out, like
the time was not there anymore, and not have to
go back into surgery because they got to fix this
problem that's messed up. So when they went back in,
they did all that. I came back out, they said

(22:31):
it was a lot worse than we thought. They had
to cut me in the back also, and drain some stuff.
It was. It was a big mess. So now I'm
like sitting on the couch again with this straight leaid
cast on, and I was like, man, there it goes.
That was that just cut me out of the two
thousand and four chances because I couldn't do anything all

(22:53):
because of this three idiots that wanted to jump in
this bank and start shooting it out.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
That's crazy. That's actually leading us right into our next
topic and burn. It's you. It's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Just like how I said at the beginning of this podcast,
I went through an unfortunate experience. My teacher was doing
a science experiment that evolved fire and unfortunately blew up
like a bomb, like a literal bomb in my face,
and I was immediately rushed to ICU, where I had
seven surgeries throughout the whole week, one every single day,

(23:28):
and a fifty percent chance to survive because of burns.
Whenever you get burned, the skin continues to burn and
burn and burn on top of the swing. And my
neck got burnt super bad, and they were worried about
my breathing stopping. But whenever I was in the hospital,
that's where I found my burn moment where I said,

(23:49):
you know what, I'm not gonna let this unfortunate experience
take a toll on my life. I'm going to turn
it into one of the best positive experiences I've ever had.
And what started the moment was, I'm a competitive golfer,
all hooked up to the IVS. Can't even see out
of my left eye because of how swollen it was.
I got my putter and put ball after ball after ball,

(24:14):
and that's what put a smile on my face whenever
I found out I had a fifty percent chance to survive.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
We all go through such unfortunate times in life, but
it's like, what can you do with that situation to
ultimately propel you forward? And you eluded this story that
you just went through where you had to give up
your amateur career and wrestling. But were there any other
unfortunate burn moments that you had to fight and overcome
in your life?

Speaker 5 (24:42):
I think, of course, I think all the way through
it is always something. There was always something without adversity
that didn't it just it doesn't make that victory at
the end seem is successful, right, I mean, all the
w through it, I mean that particular moment I'll finish
even with that moment. So with that moment when I

(25:05):
was there after that happened, I'm sitting there with the
leg brace on and I was on my couch. And
a month later, you know, I'm sitting there. I was thinking,
I got to get this thing off. I've got to
do something. And I get a call out of the
Complete Blue and it was by somebody from WWE and
they said, hey, we know you want to wait until
next year to come and try out, but we have

(25:29):
this big movement. We've seen you at the last tournament.
We would love for you to just come over there
and just meet us and have us get at eye
on you and see if we can make some kind
of deal agreement. And I was looking at the brace
and I was like, ah, I can't tell me. So
I said, I said, Okay, when do you guys need

(25:50):
me to come? And he was like, well, if you
can come in two weeks. And I was like, there's
no way I can come in two weeks. I hadn't
walked in like two months at this point. I was like,
I can't come in two weeks. So I was like, ah,
if you give me a little bit of time, and
I kind of blew them off a little bit. Amenity
said that he's like, all right, we'll give you. Let's
do it the next month. At this day, we'll just

(26:11):
send you a ticket, come down here and check it out.
And at that point I went straight to rehab. And
I mean I was going to react like two or
three times a day because I was like, I got it.
I gotta do something because this is because it's like
one door closed, another opens. You know, if you if
you could take a negative and make it positive, that's
like the key to everything. So that's what I did.
I was just training like crazy, training like crazy, and
I was just getting ready and and I actually went

(26:34):
to the trial. It was a trial. I thought they
were just going to come and we were just going
to talk. So I had my leg brace on. I
went to the airport. When I got out of the airport,
I took the leg brace off and I kind of
got rid of it because they were waiting for me there.
So I was like, all right, just walk really slow
because I didn't walked him like at this point, like
three months. But I walked the day before going to

(26:56):
the airport because I had to make sure that I
could move without them seeing it. So we were just
doing baby steps. So guy tell me, all right, just
just walk slow and you'll be all right. So I
just walked slow, walking slow, and then we get there.
Takes us over to the wrestling ring and he was like,
all right, it was me and one other guy and
that guy stealing WW to the stage too. There's two
of us that came for the trial. And he was like,

(27:18):
all right, talk to us a little bit about wrestling.
Showed us around the place and he was like, all right,
I'm gonna show you guys some moves. And I was like, cool,
you can show us some moves. Don't have me doing bobbly.
Get in the ring. He says, I'm gonna show you
how to run the ropes, like run back, bounce off
this rope, bounce off this rope, and go back and forth.
And I was just like, oh man. So at that

(27:39):
point it was one of those things where here's my opportunity.
I just griped my teeth and I ran. I did it.
I went back and forth, and I was like the
whole time. And I remember he said this afterwards. He
was like he was like, man, that was some great
facials that you had, and I was like a little
bit he know, but I mean I went through four
days with that tryout and then at the end of it,

(28:00):
they called me up as soon as they got home
and they said, we want to offer you a contract.
So that was it. That was my birth in the
w W.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
What was that pain like in the knee running from
post to post, the.

Speaker 5 (28:12):
Post scrucinating pain, and me and the guy that I
was there with afterwards, every night we would after practicing,
we would go to this little sports far there and
we would just joke and laugh. And I'm sitting their
iceing myself. I was on pain meds. Everything.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
It was rough, but I couldn't let them know how
mentally challenging was it during that time of that entire
injury from blowing your knee out right before the trials?

Speaker 3 (28:37):
How did like, how did you fathom that time? How
did you get through it?

Speaker 5 (28:41):
I you know, I figured, like like I said before,
I think, I think there's always gonna be adversity. It's
just how you react to it. It's how you take it.
I mean a lot of people they crumble with the
littlest littlest if things aren't perform, they'll crumble in a second.
For me, I think everything's been challenging for me, So
it was just one thing after another. I talked about adversities.

(29:04):
Like I said, when I was growing up, I was
I wore the same wrestling shoes from my freshman year
into my senior year, and we just didn't have money.
So at the end, I actually taped my shoe up.
So when I was at the in the state finals,
I still had the video of it State Finals, I
got my shoe all taped up and I used to
write stuff on my shoe, and it was like a
big running joke. But the joke was I couldn't afford

(29:27):
new shoes. But my joke was I used to put
Gotcha on my toe because that if people looked at it,
I was so quick I would get them that's negative.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Was there a certain moment that brought you joy during
that tough time with your knee injury?

Speaker 5 (29:47):
You know what I think as an athlete, and for me,
I've always worked, worked, worked and worked. Just just the
opportunity of doing nothing was a big deal. I mean,
I can't remember the last time that I just like
took a week off of anything training or anything like that.

(30:08):
So sometimes those injuries are just God's way of saying, hey,
take a break. And that's why I took it. The
first week, I was just like, all right, you know what,
I can't do anything, so I'm just gonna sell on
the couch, propped my leg up, and I'm just gonna
sit there and do absolutely nothing. But after a little while,
you know, of course, that starts making you get anxiety
and I gotta do something, and you're trying to like

(30:29):
hand grippers or something like that in the couch. But
I think sometimes we almost need those times to just
get us to say, you know, just just take a break.
Just take a break and do nothing. So that seems
that was hard for you, then it was very hard
for me. Yeah, And most most athletes would say that's
the hardest thing for them to do, is just really
take a break and not do anything.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
Do you think it's because they're a fear of being
caught by someone else or being out worked.

Speaker 5 (30:56):
I think that's part of it. I think that's part
of it. And then I think another part of it
is just it's just it's like a ritual. Like some
people have things that they do every day, and if
you take that away from them. It makes them feel umbalance.
And I think for me it's like that, Like there's
certain things that I know, like how some people you
wake up in the morning you brush your teeth. I
have in my day. There's some kind of workout. You know.

(31:19):
It's always been there, always there, and if I don't,
my body doesn't feel right. I just don't like I'm
not clear, I'm not mental. But that's like my my therapy.
I go to the gym on my headphones and I
work out, and my whole day is better because of that.
It's just something that I had. So as an athlete,
it's always been because I don't want to say it's
because of sports, but I know sports have been kind

(31:40):
of my driving force. There was always a goal there,
so I think if I didn't do something like that,
it's like, all right, I'm not moving closer to my goal.
So that's an athlete craziness.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah, that's the little thing you're talking about. Yesterday.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
I actually just saw on the tennis player of Francis
tiafo Behouse just on the ender you as a US
opens going on right now in tennis. He's like, yeah,
I have to have that craziness to pull a match
off like that, and what we were talking about last night,
you got to have that craziness.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Crazy to make it to the top. You really have
to be because there's that level of just that real.
Because you see most people they get you can call
it craziness. I think the people that make it to
that level don't think it's crazy. They think that's saying.
They think everything else is crazy because that breaking point,
like most people have that breaking point. Whenever you're doing

(32:31):
something like you're running, there's people that are like, oh,
he just quit, he broke. That's crazy. I'm not. And
when you get to and you could any athlete will
tell you this, any fight or anybody, when you get
to that point of that peak performance right before a
fight or right before something, where you're just like everything's fine,
full syllach, everything is great, that's perfect in your eyes,

(32:54):
and it's hard to maintain that. So anything less than that,
I think it's it could be considered crazy.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
I think so makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
So moving back to WWE, your first match comes, what
were the nerves, what were the emotions, and what was
it like your very first WWE match?

Speaker 5 (33:14):
My first ww match was I had to. Actually, that
was a hard part for me because when I went
to Louisville, Louisville was it was Louisville. So it was
crazy just for itself. But that's when my daughter. My
daughter was she was born like right around the time

(33:39):
that I was going on the road, and I was
living in Louisville all the way through the time when
her mom was pregnant, and that was challenging because you know,
I had to go back and forth, but I had
to be there, I had to train, had so a
lot of times people spend years in the developmental program,
but for me, I was just working, working, working, And

(34:00):
as soon as I got on the road, I said, hey,
I got to go home. I can't stay there anymore.
And luckily Vince was nice at that point and he
was like, all right, we'll let you go home. So
I started so I was able to go home and
just fly out on the weekends. But when I was
doing that, what they do is they first have you
do developmental. So those are the times where you see
people talk about I performed in front of twenty people

(34:21):
like a high school today. So I did those also
because everybody has to do that because you have to
know the crowd, you have to learn how to work
the crowd. You just have to be able to do
it without that fear. But fear in front of twenty
people is completely different from fear in front of twenty
thousand people. It's a huge difference. So went there and
then once they see something in you, they say, we

(34:43):
want you to come on the road. So when you
come on the road, you go on the road with
the WW So you actually go to some of the shows,
you watch TV and you get to see the whole production.
So that's what I was doing. Went there a couple
of times, and then I remember, I think, I want
to say it's Toronto. I hope, I don't. I think
it was Toronto. But they put a board up and
they write all the matches down on the board. Of

(35:05):
course I didn't go and look at the board because
I'm not gonna be there. I'm not it's not my time,
not supposed to go. But somebody said, hey, man, you're
on the board, and I was like, there's no way
I'm on that board. So I went over and looked
on the board and sure enough, I'm not even on
one of the pre show matches. I'm on actual TV.
And for me, I was always a really reserved, quiet,

(35:26):
shy person. I liked wrestling, but it was a sport
to me. So in my little bubble, I can still
be me.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
But now.

Speaker 5 (35:35):
I'm on the board and there's eighteen thousand people at
this arena in Toronto and I got to go out.
So there's a lot of nurves here and we're live.
We're live. That's the difference between us and like acting
and anything else. It's like, we're live, so there's no redos,
there's no there's no doovers. What happens happens. So I

(35:58):
just was I was walking around and everything, which is
so tense, you know. Now I gotta do it, and
I think one of the best pieces of ices I
have I think I can ever get it was. I
think it was Paul Hayman that told me. He just
came by and he said, he said, take your job seriously,
but don't take yourself seriously. And that helps me out
a lot in this business because we played characters and

(36:20):
we have to get into it, and the more you
get into it, the more crowd understands who you are,
so you can't take yourself seriously and with anything else,
with anything dealing with with media or social media, anytime
cameras are on. If you take yourself too seriously, you
stay tight and it's hard to really open up. So

(36:41):
you just can't take yourself seriously. I've played some just
some ridiculous roles.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
And.

Speaker 5 (36:50):
I just I and I have I have a big
separation from it, and I and I love my separation
because some of the guys stay in that role and
there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, Hulk Holgan is
now Hulk Hogan. He's not Hulk Hogan. That's not his
real name, but that's what he's known by. He's in
character all the time, and a lot of people are
in characters all the time. For me, when I leave work,

(37:12):
I go home and I am no longer Bobby Lashley,
I am Dad, I'm Bobby, I'm just I'm just me.
And I like that separation. It's good for me. It's
been healthy for me. That's why I've been in this
business so long. I don't take that. I don't have
ego about wrestling. If I need to, if I need
to feed my ego, and then I can strap on

(37:33):
some MMA gloves and call Scott Coker up again. That
can check your ego or help your ego, but I
don't have an ego with it. I understand the business
and I've done it for a long time, so it's
easier for me to make that separation.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah, did you ever have a nickname like Hulk Hogan did?

Speaker 5 (37:52):
And yeah, well right now I'm the almighty mean Well
before Vince mcman, Vince really loved me. That was the
cool thing about it. That's what helped out my career.
He loved me because of the person I was. I'm
not one of those guys that are all into the politics.

(38:12):
We have guys that are some of the biggest politicians
when it comes to business. They beg for what they want,
they fight for what they want. For me, I was
always the type of person that I worked hard and
Vince could see that. He can see it physically, he
could see it. He just knew it. I was that
guy and I always did that. I was always somebody
that he can count on. I always represented the company

(38:34):
really well. Like when I go places, I dress nice.
He's not gonna worry about sending me anywhere and something happens,
because with anything else, if I go somewhere and do
something stupid or I get in trouble, It's not gonna
be Bobby Lashley do. It's gonna be WWE Superstar Bobby Lashley.
So that tag is him and he doesn't want people
on his side that are going to mess up that.

(38:56):
So with anything else UFC UFC. See any one of
those guys get in trouble, it's not just so and so,
so and so, it's UFC fighter and it puts a
like a bad mark with the company. So he always
looked at me that way. He always looked at me
as somebody that he can always respect and and had
a lot of confidence in.

Speaker 4 (39:17):
Do you think buying into the politics too much affects
those specific people's like performance when they go onto it
or is it just all behind closed doors?

Speaker 5 (39:27):
A lot of times behind closed doors. Yeah, but people know,
you know, sometimes you fight through it, sometimes you fight
the people that are into it. You find your way.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Then fast forward, you win the WWE Championship.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
What was that like.

Speaker 5 (39:49):
Seventeen years later? That's what that was like. That was rough. Now,
when I first came in, I won the ECW title.
It has has a lot of prestige, but it's not
the WW title. Some people go throughout their whole career
and never even touch that title because that title has

(40:10):
a lineage of like The Rock has hOgain has, Ric
Flair has all the best of the best, the Batista,
the Roman Raines, the Senas. It has the best of
the best on there. Some people never have an opportunity
to get that title, and you can. You can really
have a successful career and never win that title, because
a lot of people have. But for me, it was

(40:31):
something that I really I really wanted to get and
my career was broken up, like I didn't go just
straight through. I went from two thousand and three getting
my first contract and I left in two thousand and eight,
and from two thousand and eight to twenty eighteen, I
fought ever in Gym's, I did one of the other

(40:51):
small companies, Impact Wrestling, So I just did that for
all that time. But my ultimate goal was the WW Championship,
and I made the and when I went to Bellator,
I put that there was the stipulation in my contract
that if I had the opportunity to go back to WWE,
then they would they would pause my contract and allow
me to go and that's hard to do. Most organizations

(41:13):
wouldn't do that, but that was the only way I
was going to sign that contract. And Scott Kocher, he's
cool to work with, so he was like, I'll do that.
So for me, I kind of did the unheard of
because I went to WW when I was forty years
old the second time. Because before, of course I was
a young kid, hungry, great shape, everything, But later on

(41:35):
they try not to hire people that are older, like
even in their thirties. But I just I came with
a pretty strong package, you know. I had a fan
base and I did. I did pretty well in fighting
and then with the other organization, I basically ran their
organization as a champ for three years leading up to it.
So when I came back and had that little talk
with WW, they were like, we'll let you. You meet

(41:59):
your age man say forty, but we don't think you're forty.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah, it was it was it hard to leave MMA
or no, it was, he's not.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Really not really. I mean I enjoyed it. I enjoyed
it because from wrestling all my years, I wanted to
get back in there. I wanted that fight again. But
I really when I went. When I went to MMA,
I was like, I'm gonna do one fight. Then I
was like, I'll do one more. I'll do and then

(42:27):
and then twenty fights into it, and I was like,
all right, I got to stop this sooner or later.
But my my deal with with MMA was I didn't.
I wasn't. I wasn't. My goal wasn't to be a
UFC champion. My goal wasn't to be a belatip champion.
And that's where I was. It was okay for me
to walk away from it because I think some of
the guys that are in there and they really want

(42:49):
to make it to the top, they have to follow
that mission, they have to complete that goal. For me,
I just wanted to have some fights, and I was
I really didn't train. I didn't train that much. I
had a boxing coach and I fell in love with boxing,
so I really enjoy boxing. But for fights, they would
call me six weeks before a fight. I would I

(43:12):
was training with like one hundred and thirty I was training.
I owned a gym in Colorado and it was in Aurora, Colorado,
so I was working with underprivileged kids. I was bringing
them off the street. So I had a bunch of
like high school kids that were in there that we
were I had good mentors. I had a good jiu
jitsu coach, one of my best friends. He was a
coach here. I liked him for the kids because he

(43:32):
was a good mentor for these kids. And I brought
on a whole bunch of guys that were really skillful
in their martial arts, but they were teaching kids and
being mentors for kids, because like if I rewind back
when I talked about my high school coach, my high
school coach was a big deal for me, and I
think a lot of these kids that are in the
inner city they had these problems because they don't have
a good mentor. So myself and then the other coaches,

(43:54):
that's what we were about. So when they called me
up and they were like, oh, he got a fight,
and I was like, I'm not leaving these kids. I'm
gonna go over there trade with these kids. So I'm
training with like high school kids get ready for like
real like serious fights. And then I had a couple
of training camps that I would work with, So I
would go down with Josh Burnett in California, would come
down here and train with him. American Top Team was

(44:15):
my home team, so I would go down there for
like a couple of weeks at a time and train
and really get into a camp. But I never really
had like a six or eight week training camp. Bro
I was like locked in. It was just like all right,
I would hit mits at home, do a little bit
of sparring on the weekend, and then every once in
a while I would go down to California. I'd go
to or go to Florida and then train with some

(44:37):
with some guys just basically spar for a few weeks
and get a little extra training in. And I was like,
all right, let's go do this.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
It's like straight from a UFC game my career. You're
just going there, hit the bag out there and skiff
and go right to the fight.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
Something's like something's like riding a bike, you know, if
you wrestling. My my wrestling, I felt I was really
confident with my wrestling, really competent with my wrestling. So
all I knew was like I fell in love with boxing,
but I don't want to test out. Oh let me
see if these things work in the cage when there's
all these people watching. I'll do that in practice, but

(45:17):
I knew that if if worst came to worse, I
would take them down. If I take them down, I
could control the fight. And I knew that. I don't
think that any anyone that I fought could have stopped
me from taking them down. That was like my game plan.
If I take them down, I'm good and I was
gonna pay good money to do it. So it worked out.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
This portion of the Burn Factory podcast is sponsored by
Phoenix Salon Sweets. Please visit Phoenix Salon Suites at p
h e n i X Salon's s A l O
N Sweets s U I T e s dot com
to find one near you. Bobby, is time to go
to the next letter? Are ridiculous? You eluded some ridiculous

(45:56):
characters you've played, But has there been a ridiculous burn
moment or more or many ridiculous burn moments that you've
endured in your career?

Speaker 5 (46:07):
Man, if if I talk about characters I played, that
would be it. The last one I did. I did
a couple of years back, and it was it was
hard for me just to go into this character because
I had a surgery, so I was out for a
few months and then whatever we get out and wrestling,
they can't just like all right, the next day you're

(46:29):
back in. So they were like, how are we gonna
get you. We're gonna work you back into the into
this system, and we're gonna work you back into the show.
So I was getting at my rehab. I think I
was four months out, So the crowd kind of forgets
about you a little bit, and then I get a
call and I think I was I was about to

(46:49):
pick up my daughter too when I was dragging down
and I get a call and the person calling they said,
all right, we gotta we're gonna bring you back. We
want to do you we want we want you to
do this role. And I said, oh yeah, what is it?
He goes, well, there's a couple that's married in wrestling.
The wife had been out the whole time also, so said, well,

(47:12):
what's gonna happen is we want to bring her back,
and then we're going to bring you back, and we're
going to say that you guys were in a you
guys got together when you guys were rehabing, And I
was like, are okay? Like, because wrestling to me, it's
just kicking and punching that's all I wanted. So he goes.

(47:33):
So the guy was Miro. He was Rousseph at the
time and his wife. They were actually married, but on
TV they did a role together. So they said, she's
going to come out when he has a match and
she's going to say, you know, Russeph, you didn't think
about me. I was out rehabbing, doing all this, and
all you were thinking about was yourself. And when you

(47:54):
were thinking about myself, yourself, somebody else was thinking about me.
And I became friends with him, and they're telling me
this and I'm sitting there like okay, And then he
said and then afterwards, you guys are gonna like start
kissing on the stage while he's in the ring. And
I was like, I don't know I can do this.

(48:18):
I said, I don't know if I can do this.
And so of course I get a call from a
couple of different people there and they said, listen, there's
there's parts of this show that we that we that's character.
And the one thing that they wanted to get me
to do is to break out of my shell because
I've always been, you know, locked in. I'm always hard mean.

(48:42):
They said, we need to see different levels of you,
and I was like, we don't need to see this level.
This was kind of crazy, and so I was like
a man, I said, are they cool with it? Because
they're married? Are they cool with it? God, she's there, cool,
We've already talked to them. And I was like, okay,

(49:03):
all right. So they hit me in the back and
then they brought her back. So we were both hiding
in a trailer off the back and they had the
show going on, and we came out. She came out.
She starts talking all this mess. Nobody's seen me for
a while, and she comes out. Everybody's cheering, and then
she says and somebody husband, and she singles for me

(49:24):
to come out. And I came out and everybody's like, hey,
like this, and then she like grabs me and then
she starts kissing me, and we started kissing on stage,
and the internet broke at that time. Everybody's calling me.
It was. It was very uncomfortable for me, very very
in this whole role. But the main thing that they
wanted to do. I had to look at it from
a different point of view, and like I met the couple.

(49:48):
I talked to both of them. They were completely cool,
with it, and then we are running a show, so
it's about characters, and for me, it's you know, not
taking yourself seriously. That was the hardest thing that I
had to do, especially in this role, and I think
that that's what Vince was trying to get me to do,
is to be uncomfortable. That's the hardest thing that we

(50:10):
have an opportunity. Nobody wants to be uncomfortable. Everybody wants
to be in their little safe place when they get
on TV. They want to play safe characters. But if
you think about it over time, some of the best
characters of the people that really just let go. Like
if you meet like somebody like a Kevin Hart, Kevin
Hart is not like all amped up all the time.
He's not what people expect him to be. It's that

(50:31):
he has the ability to let go. And that's all
they were trying to get me to do. It was
very cringey for me to do, and it was very
hard for me to do. But we ran this little role.
I got a lot of heat and and their social
media went through the roof on everything that they posted
what we did. We actually even went to a wedding
and during the wedding of course he came out, everything

(50:53):
went crazy and cake was thrown and people were getting
beat up. But it was just it was a very
stressful few months going through this role.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
How many like likes did it get on social media?
If it broke a.

Speaker 5 (51:08):
Ridiculous amount, I think just YouTube alone probably paid my salary.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Oh how long did this role go on for?

Speaker 2 (51:18):
It was?

Speaker 5 (51:20):
I think it was a few months. Wow, it was
a few months.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yeah, yeah, I feel I feel like Another ridiculous moment
is whenever you thought Mike Cook and the Maximum Fighting
Championship and came out in the ray mysterio mask and
you took it personally.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
Oh yeah, that idiot. And do you know what it
was about the thing that pissed me off with that?
This is the thing that pissed me off with that? Yeah,
me all worked out, so it was cool, all right.
So I started to deal with this. Oh there's a
lot to this one. I don't even know if I

(51:55):
can talk about some of this. So I get it
was Maximum five Championship or something like that in Canada.
So they called me up to do this fight and
I'm training for it, you know, for somebody to not
have respect for me, they're not, Like, I don't understand
some of these MMA guys. They think because I went
to pro wrestling, you could erase everything else that I've done,

(52:18):
which is ridiculous. Somebody that just goes and his whole
career has started out in an MMA gym and he
learns you just he learns box and everything like that,
he thinks that's more valuable than the twenty years that
I had wrestling whin a national championships, placing at the
World Championships and all this, because that's what I took
it as. Anyway, we go there, I didn't see the
guy the entire time we go for WAYNS. I'm standing

(52:40):
there with like Josh Thompson and some of the guys
that I knew from like AKA and some of the
guys from ATT like we're seriously, we're getting ready for
a fight, and it's at Wayans and Josh was like,
he's like, do you know where's the guy that you're fighting?
And I was like, I don't know. He's around here somewhere.
And of course you want to see the guy you're
fighting at that time, you know, like mentally size him
up or whatever. So I don't know where this guy

(53:03):
is and then you know, people are going through Wayans
and we're about to go to Wayans and he's still
not there. And then and then he walks up and
he stands like next to me, but he's not. He
he doesn't want to look at me, and he's wearing
a wrestling mask at that time. He's wearing a mask
at this time. And Josh looked at me, and Josh
knows me. And I've been to enough gems that the

(53:25):
people in these gyms know what I'm capable of doing. Yes,
I did pro wrestling, but they know what I'm capable
of doing. So Josh just looked at me and he
was like oh, And I was like and it was
just like burn me up. And he just he thought
it was a big game. That's how it was. It
was a big game. So he went up there, he
weighed in, and I waded in and then at that

(53:46):
point I was like, I don't even to talk to
this guy, So now I gotta chip on my shoulder.
Then the day of the fight, I don't even know
if I can talk about that. So the day of
the fight, we're in there. I'm with my boxing coach
and one of the guys from att and the owner
of the of the fight promotion is calling me up

(54:08):
telling me, hey, you got to get the rest of
your medicals. And I was like, it's the day of
the fight. What medicals do I need to get? And
he goes, Oh, you need to go get your eye exam.
You need to get all this stuff. So I was
like all right. So we're running around and the day
of the fight, I'm running around doing all these things
because he has a list of things that I need
to do. So I'm going through all this and then
the last thing I had to do is I had

(54:29):
to get my eyes checked. Got my eyes checked, and
I had to get dilated because of what it says
on this paper, so I had to get my eyes
dilated before the fight. So I get my eyes dilated,
and I was like, this is weird. So I go
back and then my coach was like, man, like, we're
trying to fight it, but they're telling me that I
can't fight unless I get all these things done. So

(54:50):
I get everything done and then and then the fight.
So we go to the fight. I go down to
the ring and I'm sitting there in the ring and
it's a it's a. It's a it's a boxing ring,
and all the lights are beaming down so I'm looking
up there and I can't see anything because my eyes
are dilated because I've had to do this this ridiculous

(55:11):
checks beforehand. Oh so I I go through with that,
and then I'm sitting in the ring and then this
guy his music plays and he comes out and he
has like the Ray myster of mask and he's doing
all this whole Colgan stuff. I'm like, I should I
want to kill this deep. So he comes to the

(55:32):
ring and then you know, Jesse and McCarthy's here. He's
a rough and he's like, all right, gives the last
stuff and he's like, all if you guys want to
shake hands and shake hands, and he puts his hands
out and I walked away. I was like, man, I'm
not gonna shake it, like all this stuff that you've
been doing. I'm not shaking your hand. And I don't
know exactly what it was, but I wanted to hit

(55:53):
him so bad.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
This all stick and.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
And I was doing this like this like switch step
to a jab, and then I was supposed to end
with the kick and I was going out there and
that's the first thing I was going to do because
I was catching a lot of people in practice with it.
And then when the bell rang, we came at each
other and I ran at him with that and I
did it, and I felt like I clipped him, and

(56:18):
I think I clipped him. But after that, his head
fell like right into my arms. And I had this
choke that I was doing. I choked a lot of
people out with it, and I had him choked out,
and I had him choked out from his feet because
when you when you when you have somebody choked out
like that, you can fiell their body limp. So he
went limp, and we went down to the ground, and
we went down the ground. He's flat and I'm staring

(56:40):
at McCarthy and he's like looking at me like we
know what's going on. And then this guy's feet are
like just going like this, but the rest of his
body is not moving. I know he's out, and his
speeder like going like that, and then he jumped in.
He said, no, he's out, he's out. It was weird
because I think he was knocked out the beginning, but
his body was kind of like in shock him, like
his feet were like kicking in everything like that, and
it was, oh was going crazy. It felt weird. And

(57:01):
then yeah, he was out. So I think it was
only like maybe twenty something seconds. I think the fight
was holding along. Was it like a guillotine, Yeah, it was.
It was a front choke. It was like it was
like a blood choke. I did a lot where I
just kind of penim it, just kind of give him
a little where he's like that. But I put him
out like that right away to.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Choke him out. Yeah, you didn't feel any sense.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
I mean, I didn't want to take it personally. Yeah,
you know, I got a little fired up, but that
was just the crowd. That was the show of it.
But you know, the funny part of it. And I'm
not gonna say whether it was true or not, but
the rumor was and I was told this is that
the promoter had bet a lot of money against me

(57:45):
for that fight because it was like I was like
a huge favor. He bet a lot of money against me,
so he was trying to make sure that I was
gonna be, you know, a little handicapped because the guy,
like my record was two and o at this time
the guy was fighting, his record was nine and two.
So he was a tough, scrappy kid. I think it
was from California. He was a tough, scrappy kid. But
I think the promoter was putting a lot of money

(58:06):
on it and he wanted to like really pay out
with it. So that's what he did, and so he lost.
That's his money and they never and they lost their
TV deal after that.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Also, did they ever come out to the public what
happened or no.

Speaker 5 (58:24):
Because there was only a couple of people that knew.
He wouldn't tell, but he he got to take it
off there there. I forget what channel it was. It was.
It was like one of those channels that showed like
some local fights, but like almost like a step under
like Strike Force and everything like that. But they were
doing well to Canada promotion. I think they may still

(58:44):
throw fights, but they they lost their deal after that.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
That's what happens when you get into those lower leagues.
It didn't work out though he got the last laugh.

Speaker 5 (58:56):
I couldn't see still one.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
So weird, yea, because you see to do medicals at
the beginning of the week and or even before you
even get there, so to be doing in.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
The fight, did you have to do medicals twice in
or yep, so they made you do medicals twice ye.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
That's some shady, shady stuff right there.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
And I didn't even realize it because I was the
only one at the second part because they had they
had their driver take us, so I was I was
the only one there at this at the the eye
exam to get that part done.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
That's insane. That's where that's a ridiculous burn moment right
there too. But all right, Bobby, it's time to go
to the last letter, and it's two parts. So the
first one is now or what are are there some
burn moments you're going through right now? And are there
some burd moments that you see coming in the future.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
I think there's always going to be something in the future.
You just got to set yourself up for it and
be prepared. I think right now, I don't I don't
know if it would be necessarily a burn moment, but
I'm kind of at that place in my career where
it's like we're winding down a little bit. I mean,
with my job's not a job that you want to
be doing well into your fifties or beating your body up.

(01:00:10):
I put a lot of I put a lot of
mileage on my body from wrestling, and I'm trying to
look at what's next. I won't say I'm not at
the point in my career because you never want to
see in your career that it's over, because if you
say it's over, then you're gonna move quickly in that direction.
But I think over the next couple of years, I'm
gonna be slowing it down a little bit more. So
That's kind of one thing that I've been looking at,

(01:00:31):
is like what's next. I mean, I've competed my entire life.
I've heated since I was a kid, So to even
look at the the endpoint of not competing anymore, that
might be a challenging thing to do. I mean, I
kind of looking at what else I can do. I mean,
like there's jiu jitsu and everything like that. You can
do jiu jitsu tournaments forever, but is that going to

(01:00:55):
feed that that competitive kind of hunger. Even with professional wrestling,
there is a lot of competition there because everybody's competing
for that top spot. You got to be physically ready,
you got to be mentally ready, you got to go
through it, you got to win the crowd. So it's
still a competition. Everybody's competing. So once I get out
of professional wrestling, it's like, what do I do next?

(01:01:16):
Am I gonna be able to feed that hunger of competition?
So I think that's the biggest thing that I have
right now. Outside of that, you know, I stay pretty
positive with everything. I'm always in a good mood, so
I never let anything bring me down. And I think
I've been through so much over the course of my
life that I don't think anything is really going to
knock me back down.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Would you ever make the switch back to mix myrtial arts?

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
I said no before, but there's a big possibility. I
don't want to be one of those I always told
I would always tell my training partners and if you
see me slowing down, just tell me, really, just sit
me down no more, because you always get those guys
that never want to give up. You see it all

(01:02:03):
the time. You see somebody that had won too many fights,
and then it's sad because you see your hero getting
beat up and getting knocked out, and it's like, oh
and he just looks not like that superhero that you
saw him before. So I always told my training partners.
You know, if you feel that I'm moving a little slower,
can't catch the jab, can't slip, just let me know

(01:02:24):
and I won't do it anymore. But I did. I
have been talking with the filman right yeah, bare knuckles.
There is an offer on the table right now to
do a fight. I haven't really told anybody about it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Breaking news we got Bobby Lashley.

Speaker 5 (01:02:49):
Got a fight. It's something that sparks a little curiosity.
I wanted to do straight boxing because you know, with
the boxing gloves, it is what it is. I really
love boxing. I feel like my boxing is is good

(01:03:09):
enough to go against another athlete, not like a straight boxer,
but another athlete that we can probably put on a
good show and have a good fight. But bare knuckles
is a different animal.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Barred knuckles.

Speaker 5 (01:03:28):
Well, you know, I say, I don't. I don't want
to be like the money because but but the money
is a big deal. It's a big deciding factor. I'm
not just gonna do it for free. So they came
with they came with an offer. They came with an opponent.
I like the opponent. The offer is decent, but you

(01:03:49):
just gotta go up a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Go up a little bit more and you'll do it?

Speaker 5 (01:03:53):
Is it possibility you can't.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
He's got a pretty big name, Mike Cook.

Speaker 5 (01:04:05):
Yeah, like the rematch.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Are you leaning towards it though you think?

Speaker 5 (01:04:13):
I just don't know, because like right now, where I'm
in my career, I still have another year of my
W two B contract, and after that year, I don't
know where. I don't know where I'm going to be mentally,
I don't know if I'm going to want to do
it then, Like if I could do it now, if
I could take a little break and do it now
and just train and do it, I would definitely do it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Would they let you?

Speaker 5 (01:04:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
That's why I told him talk to events.

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
Vince will say no. Vince will say no. So I
told him, I said, the offer has to be so
great that that I would be willing to have that argument. Yeah,
because it would be an argument I would have to
really fight that point. So it's got to be a
big number.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
We'll see.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
If you fight the right person. The numbers are there,
But I just don't know if Barre Knuckles has that
kind of money. They've been paying people a lot of money,
but I don't know if they have that kind of money.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
They have been.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
I mean their last card was pretty good when they
had Mike Perry and Luke rock Hold. So they're paying
some a lot of money. But I just don't know
if they can get a real fan base behind it,
that'd be tough. It's hard to watch. It's hard for
us to watch, and we're avid MMA fans.

Speaker 5 (01:05:25):
Yeah. Yeah, And what I don't understand with it it
is its own fight, its own style of fighting. Because
you would think that you just get some boxes to
come in there, just clean house right away. But boxes
aren't getting in there because the boxes. No, It's like
you have maybe one fight, two fights, two fights the most.
It beats you up, beats up your hands more than

(01:05:46):
anything and get your face all cut up. And who
wants to risk getting But I don't know. I don't
know if it can. It's it's one of those freak
shows that people want to tune in for but then
don't want to see. Almost like the slap fighting.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
Power Slop. Yeah, do you watch that all? Or no?

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
Everybody does.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
I don't mind it. I don't like power Slap You
like it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Uh huh?

Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
I can watch it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
That's what everyone said about UFC that in the beginning,
all the sport's crazy, but then you start getting the moment.

Speaker 5 (01:06:21):
I don't want to put it. I wouldn't put it
down because, like I know that they're doing high numbers
and Dan White really likes it. But man, like you
can't move. I can understand if you can, like dug
your Dodgers, but you just standing there. That's like here
you get a concussion, you get a concussion, you get
a concussia. I don't look at it as a safe sport.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
It's wild and live.

Speaker 4 (01:06:47):
We went back in July, we went to a power
Slap event live and just hearing that smack and.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
It's hard to watch.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
And I don't think those guys are getting paid that much.

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
Yeah, there's not opportunity for a star though to come
in and do it. Yeah, no, the bare knuckles stretch.
But power slap Now.

Speaker 5 (01:07:07):
With one step away from what was that movie called
with Arnold Schwisnegger back in the day, The Running Man?
Was it The Running Man? I don't know, I don't
I got to look at anybody that's older The Running
Man where they used to take people from prison and
if they try to get away. They can get away
and they're free, and then they would send people off
to kill them and it was like a game show.
Really get to I thought about that because like, man,

(01:07:32):
we we just we want more. We kickboxing, O don't know,
we want some wrestling. We got m M A MMA
is everything. We don't need anything past that. They're like,
all right, well we can do no gloves. Oh that's fun.
Then what's next? Like gun fights, sword fights.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
Literally that's where we're heading.

Speaker 5 (01:07:51):
Because people love it. See, that was the one thing
for me that was hard with fighting. When I was fighting,
I enjoy I enjoyed the martial art. I enjoy jiu jitsu.
I enjoy high level jiu jitsu. I enjoy boxing. I
fell in love with boxing. I love looking at like
high level muay Thai. But sometimes the crowds, some of
the crowds aren't that educated enough to know all that

(01:08:13):
that's going on. Like if somebody goes down to the ground,
they're like get them back up, so they gus started swinging.
But there's a lot going on down there. I remember
one of the fights. I was down there and I
had this guy pinned down. You know, I'm trying to
take strikes on him to finish the fight. They're like,
kill him, kill him, And I was like, whoa, whoa.
I don't know if you guys want to see that
right now. But I think it's it's getting to that

(01:08:34):
point where they just want more. Crowd wants more instead
of just understanding them the art of them in May
and I think a lot of the gyms popping up.
I think the gyms are making it more understandable, so
now people are watching. Like I taught boxing in Colorado
when I was there for a while and I was

(01:08:57):
teaching a lot of housewives, so and they they wouldn't
you know, when their husbands are watching the fighters, I
don't want to watch that. But when I taught them
boxing and we start really like understanding boxing, they would
go back and they would watch and they were like, oh,
now we can understand a little bit more. So I
like the fact that MMA gyms are actually teaching people
that they're educating them on fighting. So now you have

(01:09:18):
a different crowd coming in, not just the crowd that
wants to see. We want blood, we want to get off.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
There's always gonna be those crazy guys, but always I
love training too, because you're in their shoes and you
know what they're going through, and you know some of
those positions are hard to get and hard to get
up from, so taboo. It is just ridiculous. That's my
biggest pet peeve. I hate when people boo fights. I
cannot stand it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:41):
And that's you know, I think that it's so hard
and I don't want to I don't want to just
see the United States, but it is kind of like
that in the United States, like you're only as good
as your last fight, and that's a hard thing, and
you don't and you can't find the best fighters if
you're going in there saying I just can't lose, because
if you can't, if you if if you have that mentality,
you can't just let yourself go and really fight. That's

(01:10:04):
why some of my best my best training was in practice,
Like I would train with like everybody across the board,
and I love training with people. I love fighting with people.
I would fight anyone in the in the room. But
when you have a contract and you've got to be
in front of people and everything like that, now it's
different because now I'm putting everything on the line, as
opposed to like if you go. When I was down

(01:10:24):
in Japan, when I was doing a lot of work
in Japan, they would cheer both fighters. They would cheer
just a good fight. So guys who go out there
and have great fights, because it was like, go out
there and fight. It's not about the win and loss.
It's about training yourself to a certain level and testing yourself.
And sometimes in tests you don't succeed, and that's just
part of the game. And if you don't succeed, you
can go back to drawing board, train some more and

(01:10:46):
maybe take that test again. Here it's like you're not
taking a test, You're putting everything on the line. So
it's like, oh, he's the greatest fighter, and the next
week he's terrible.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
Yeah, because I've heard so.

Speaker 5 (01:10:57):
Many times like that. You see somebody that had the
title and U gets beat even gets knocked out. They're like, oh,
he sucks. Like what he sucked. He didn't suck. He lost,
And that can happen. Styles make matchups, so anybody can lose.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
At the end of the day, it's a fight.

Speaker 5 (01:11:14):
It's a fight.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Anything can happen. But all right, Bobby, well you just
spelt burning your life, so thank you. So much for
coming on the show. Tell the audience where they can
find you social media everything.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
Oh, you can find me at I think my social
media is my Twitter is fight Bobby and Instagram is
just Bobby Lashley.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
You heard the man, go give him some love. And
as a gift for coming on the show, Bobby, you
will be getting the black Label edition Burn Factory hoodie
and hat where only guests get these so beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Yeah, there you go, wear it loud, wear it proud.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
Yes, but that's gonna do it for another episode of
the Burn Factory Podcast. Like always like, comment and subscribe
at the Burn Factory Podcast and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Always be sure to visit my foundation as well, the
Priest James Foundation dot org. Again the Priest James Foundation
dot org to understand why this is called the Burn Factory.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
And we'll see you guys for the next episode. Peace.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
All right, guys, we're here with Bobby Lashley who just
spelt burnt and his life and he is now the
Burn Factory Podcast Champion and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
You can add it to the collection of the belts.
But thank you so much for coming on the show, Bobby.
We got a blast. We hope you had just as
much as one. So thank you so much. He's the
new champion.

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