Bobby Lashley Talks Being Mentored By Paul Heyman, How He Found His Past Heel Persona, Transitioning to MMA, More

This week on “Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia”, Lilian sits down with WWE Superstar, Bobby Lashley! This episode rapidly dives into Lashley’s hilarious memories of his Wrestlemania 23 “Battle of the Billionaires” match & what happened on Monday Night Raw the night after that even involved Lilian herself. He discusses what it was like growing up as a child of a veteran of the United States Army, moving around a lot and having to adapt to different schools, and dealing with the culture shock along with the toll it took on him. Bobby further discusses how he went from growing up as a shy kid to striving to be in high pressure situations. Lashley mentions his early beginnings in the world of professional wrestling and how he developed his relationship with current superstar, Dolph Ziggler. Hear his exclusive thoughts on some of the current members of the Monday Night Raw roster such as Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar and how he feels about his current run in the WWE compared to his first WWE run over 10 years ago.  Listen to Bobby’s inspiring journey and why he always puts his children before himself along with what keeps him motivated. Also, hear why he decided to transition to MMA and what made him continue to love pro wrestling at the same time. All this and so much more in this unique episode of Chasing Glory. Below are some interview highlights.

Growing up and moving around as a shy kid:

“I’m a shy person. I kind of keep to myself a little bit. I’m kind of quiet. So when I came back, we were always having to adjust to a new school. I came back, I think it was the 5th grade. We went from Germany where we had some German kids and we had the people in our own little community and then we flew over to the United States and boom, you’re going to meet a whole new crop of kids. Being kind of a shyer kid, I kind of withdrew a little bit, I was the little nerd that wanted to wear ties to school. So that was me, I was just quiet most of the time.”

Debuting on Smackdown and getting mentored by Paul Heyman:

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“The first time when I debuted on Smackdown, I was not supposed to debut. There was nothing going on, I was just one of the OVW guys that were on the road. So they let me go on the road, do a couple house shows and that was it, I was not supposed to be brought up. And then it goes to TV and I was in catering because there was no way I was doing anything and then someone says, ‘Hey, you have a match tonight’. Immediately my heart starts racing, I was like, ‘Huh? What? What are you talking about?! Me? I’m not supposed to do it!’ But then when I went over there I kind of stepped back in the back and you know what? The person that got me was Paul, Paul Heyman. As crazy as this is, he came and talked to me because he mentored me back in OVW when I was in OVW, he was a writer there and he was the one that talked to me and got to know me. He just walked over to me with that smug little grin that he always has on his face and looked at me and goes, ‘You nervous?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah I’m nervous, what are you talking about? There’s 17,000 people here! I just started wrestling!’ And he goes, ‘The only thing you’re really nervous about is and the only thing that messes you up is this whole anticipation act. When they call your name, you’re going to have to go out and I know you’re going to do great and you’re going to be excited and you’re going to come back and be like, man why did I kill myself before?’ he said, ‘If you can handle this stuff now, the rest is easy.’”

Being a heel:

“When they say ‘heel’, I say, ‘What’s the definition of a heel?’ and that was how my character kind of came about. Because I’m not necessarily a heel, it’s that I’ve been in the wrestling business for a long time and I’m not one of those guys that go online and feed stuff to The Dirt Sheet to get myself over or try to bury the boys or anything like that, I’ve never been. I’m one of those guys that’s there and when I’m not there, I’m at home with my kids. I’ve never had anything negative to say about anyone at any point in time. When I went over to that heel stance, all I did with the heel thing was like, ‘You know what, I’ve always been held down in this business because I’ve always tried to be the good guy, the nice guy. No more nice guy. I’m only trying to win titles. I have kids to feed and I have bills to pay. We all know that the person that’s on top gets the most money, gets taken care of the best, and all those different things, so with that being said, I’m doing whatever I have to do to win titles.’ And that’s how my heel thing went.”

Transitioning to MMA:

“MMA for me, it was something that I needed to challenge myself. I need to challenge myself at all points in time and when I came out of the WWE, that was such a high that to challenge myself at something so low wouldn’t work for me. I needed something that was really going to challenge me in an uncomfortable situation and fighting definitely puts you in an uncomfortable situation. You go through and you’ve never boxed before and you have to go to a boxing coach and he’s sitting there teaching you how to move your feet. It kind of humbles you and makes you hungry to learn and after you learn, you can actually test your learning on a mainstage. It was a lot of different things for me.”

Why he loves wrestling:

“I have a fanbase and I have a large fanbase and there’s a lot of people that like me, and there’s a lot of people that support me, and there’s a lot of people that can relate to me. I can’t even begin to entertain another wrestler’s perception of me if they don’t understand what my fans look for in me. I’m different, I’m different. That’s why I love wrestling because there’s so many different people. I love everybody from Hornswoggle, to the Great Khali, to Seth Rollins, to The Bludgeon Brothers. I love everything about wrestling because of that. You’re going to relate to someone and that’s what wrestling is about. It’s not about saying, ‘I’m better than you or you’re better than me’, because that’s the arrogant, ignorant attitude. Everybody has a voice, everybody has the person that they like and that’s what wrestling is all about.”

His future goals:

“I want to be a household name. I want to be a future hall of famer in wrestling. I want to pay my dues, I want to travel around the world, I want to impact people, I want to have titles, I want to set records that haven’t been broken before, with the universal title and myself. There’s a lot of different things, but at the end of the day, I want to have the respect from some of the people that I wrestled with and say, ‘You know what, I really enjoyed wrestling with Bobby.’ I want to have the fans come and say, ‘You know what, that was awesome what he did. He left, came back 10 years later and still was on the top, still set records, and was able to get back afterwards.’”

Listen to the full episode on LilianGarcia.com or in the above video player.