Bobby Lashley Explains How His Run as Impact World Champion Prepared Him to Become WWE Champion

Bobby Lashley has the opportunity to become WWE Champion for the first time in his career during this week's Monday Night Raw. But, as some fans already know, this won't be his first reign as a world champion if he can dethrone The Miz. In-between his two runs in WWE Lashley had a successful tenure in TNA/Impact Wrestling, holding the Impact World Championship on four separate occasions for a whopping 403 days. In a new interview with Bleacher Report on Monday, Lashley explained how being a world champion in Impact helped prepare him for the role he's trying to take now.

"I think [that Impact run] helped out tremendously because once you come into WWE and they say you're going to be a champion, there's going to be some uncertainties and insecurities," Lashley said. "'Am I able to carry that ball? Am I able to do it? Am I able to have those big matches with everyone?' Because that's what you need to do as a champion, and when I was in Impact, I had those opportunities.

"There's no question in my mind whether I should be on top or not," he later added. "Some people already know it. You see Roman [Reigns] walk out there as the head of the table. He can't even look down his chin is so high up. He has that confidence because he's been in those matches with The Undertaker and Brock and all these different people. Same with Drew. Drew's the same way. Drew can't even see people that are under 6'5" because he's so high up right now, and he knows what he's capable of doing. Not everybody has that."

Lashley returned to WWE in 2018, but it wasn't until he joined forces with MVP and formed The Hurt Business that he found his footing on Monday Night Raw.

"Even though I believed in myself, you always have the devil on your shoulder and the angel on the other telling you to keep working and keep working," he said. "The harder you work, the luckier you'll get. You'll get there. You also have that little voice in the back of your head saying, 'Is this it? You're done, man. You've been doing this too long. You're never going to get there. There's always going to be another obstacle.' You always have that voice. As much as we try to submerge that voice, that voice is always there. I didn't listen to that voice for many years, but we had to get that voice completely out of there. When MVP came in, MVP was yelling so loud that I couldn't even hear that voice."

Stay tuned for live coverage of Lashley vs. Miz for the WWE Championship on tonight's Monday Night Raw.