As far as the public is concerned, Bobby Lashley is a free agent. The All-Mighty officially exited WWE this past August, following in former manager MVP’s footsteps. MVP was very public with his frustrations with WWE, specifically taking issue with the company’s lack of willingness to book a proper reunion of The Hurt Business, a stable he led alongside Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and Cedric Alexander. Lashley’s frustrations also stemmed from booking problems, as he had been treading water in and around the midcard after losing the WWE Championship in February 2022. With Benjamin already on the independent circuit again, both Lashley and MVP leaving WWE at around the same time comes with the aspiration of reuniting the core trio of their fan-favorite stable in another company.
Bobby Lashley’s Scrapped AEW WrestleDream Role
The Hurt Business would have officially opened its All Elite office last weekend under different circumstances.
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As reported by Fightful Select, AEW ultimately decided to delay Bobby Lashley’s televised debut away from the expected stage of AEW WrestleDream in Tacoma, Washington. This is because Lashley’s arrival would have likely yielded a similar result to the angle that transpired in the pay-per-view’s main event, that being a group of heels beating down a hometown boy.
Lashley’s debut likely would’ve resulted with him leading an attack on Swerve Strickland, a Tacoma native. Considering AEW WrestleDream ended with Jon Moxley defeating Aberdeen, Washington’s Bryan Danielson in his final full-time career match and then leading a vicious attack on him after the bell, AEW wanted to avoid having two angles go down that were not only similar to one another, but deflated the Tacoma crowd by having two of their countrymen on the receiving end of attacks.
Lashley’s imminent AEW debut will mark his first time competing outside of WWE since 2018. He initially got his professional wrestling start in WWE back in 2005 and was immediately envisioned as a top guy, competing for world championships and wrestling in marquee WWE WrestleMania matches.
His first WWE exit came in 2008, and he took his talents across the independent circuit, finding new life inside the squared circle in TNA in 2014. It was there that Lashley first linked up with MVP on-screen, and the two have been close confidants since. Lashley was back in WWE in 2018 and reached the pinnacle he missed out on in his first run, that being winning the WWE Championship. He did so with MVP in his corner as well, as the former United States Champion linked up with Lashley shortly after his own return to WWE in January 2020.
“I still want to wrestle. I love wrestling,” Lashley said in August after leaving WWE. “And the fans, the fans are writing me every day saying ‘when are you coming back, where are you going, I don’t care where you go, we want to be there for you,’ so I love the fans. I have a lot of gas in the tank. I’m in great shape. I feel good. I’m motivated. I’m rested.”
Stay tuned to ComicBook for updates on Lashley’s AEW future.
