Bobby Lashley will compete as a member of Team Raw in the 5-on-5 elimination tag team match this coming Sunday at the 35th annual Survivor Series pay-per-view. The Red Brand is coming off of a massive win over SmackDown at last year’s event, with the men’s team beating The Blue Brand in a 5-0 sweep. “The All Mighty” sat down with ComicBook earlier to discuss the event, saying, “This weekend is going to be big. And Survivor Series is always cool because it’s bragging rights. So right now, SmackDown’s been talking about a lot of trash. They’ve been the number one show. And of course, Raw is the number one show. We just have to go defend our title.”
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The former WWE Champion is fresh off a feud against Goldberg, which saw him pick up a victory at SummerSlam before losing a No Holds Barred, Falls Count Anywhere match to the WCW legend at Crown Jewel. “Da Man” hasn’t been on WWE television since, but Lashley thinks the door is still open for a rubber match between the two.
“I think [the program] went great,” Lashley said. “It’s Goldberg. People say good things, bad things about him, but the one thing that you can’t deny is when Goldberg comes out, everybody goes crazy. I was in the arena every time when he came out. Whenever he comes out, people went crazy. Goldberg is just going to be that anomaly, is going to be that person in the wrestling business that’s always going to be a huge name, a huge draw. And being a champion at the time, it was always cool to be able to have the opportunity to go against him. And we had some good matches, but I don’t think it’s over. We’re one and one right now, so we need to have that trilogy.”
Check out the full interview with Lashley below! And stay tuned for full coverage of Survivor Series this Sunday night, taking place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York and airing live on Peacock!
Any updates on the Brock Lesnar dream match front?
The powers that be on his side are… sometimes he may need to be a little protected. I don’t know what the case is. I think that Brock picked his matches. Right now, he’s really tight with Roman (Reigns). So I don’t know how long he and Roman are going to go, but there’s definitely a match that we’ll probably look at in the near future.
Recently we saw you reunite with Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander. Now that MVP is back from his injury, how does it feel to have The Hurt Business all back together?
The Hurt Business is strong, man. There’s many factions that have come together in WWE, but that faction was just natural. It was four guys that were friends, that had the same mission, that hadn’t reached their full potential. And we got together, we formed like Voltron. That’s the kind of team you’re getting, and we were doing some big things, man. So it’s always cool to have an opportunity to be able to work with your friends and make money with your friends. So The Hurt Business is real, man. And I think that we have an opportunity to maybe run that back and do some big things. But I really enjoyed my time working with The Hurt Business. And on top of it, during the pandemic, when everything was shut down, we were the group that stepped up. We were doing four or five, six segments on the show. We were the whole show there for a while. We really stepped up, showed what we were about during that time. So I think that needs to be looked at and commended, because we’re still doing it.
UFC’s Colby Covington recently hinted that he might be looking to make a jump to the WWE, and you two were both members of American Top Team at one point. How would you feel if he made that jump?
I’m fine with it. I worked with him before. I was the one that actually brought him into the business originally. Because originally, we did some stuff before, brought him into that world, and that’s where he learned this part in the marketing aspect of him being a fighter. And he really turned his whole career around. He was at the point where he was just beating guys and no one really knew him. And then he got into the wrestling world. The next thing you know, he’s main eventing.
So I think that he really loves the opportunity to be able to come back and do some more wrestling stuff. I don’t know if it’s going to come to fruition, but I’m sure if he met the right people, maybe talked to the right people, and worked something out, I think we can probably have some room for him here.
Why do you think the crossover between MMA and Pro Wrestling is becoming more prevalent?
Because it’s in the same realm. And what I try to tell people in MMA is that it’s still Sports Entertainment. Because they’re like, “Oh, it’s a fight.” Nah, man, if it was a fight, then you wouldn’t go out there in front of crowds. You wouldn’t be trying to sell tickets. You wouldn’t be having face-offs. You wouldn’t be having all these things. It’s Sports Entertainment. And WWE, we do it better than anyone. So if you had a little taste of Sports Entertainment from the fighting aspect, of course you would want to come and see what it is from the pro wrestling aspect. I know a lot of the guys that fight right now are big wrestling fans. (Daniel) Cormier and some of the guys that I worked with before that came and did some crossover. They were like, “Wow, this is amazing.” It’s the same thing that they do. When I stopped fighting, my training never changed. It’s basically almost the same genre. So I think a lot of the guys want to make that move over because they know there’s a lot of money in wrestling. And they have an opportunity to come do what they’ve been doing their entire life.
Who are some guys in MMA right now who could benefit from taking a few notes from pro wrestling?
You got some like Israel Adesanya…Francis Ngannou. I think those guys are phenomenal. And if they turned the volume up a little bit on what they were doing, I think it would put them to that stardom of Conor McGregor. Conor already gets it.
Conor promotes fights, and every time, he’s promoting fights when he is not even fighting. He’s sitting at home injured and he still promote fights and sell himself. And I think a lot of times when you go into mixed martial arts it’s all about respect. And some of those guys are saying, “Okay, I’m not going to talk because I want to have respect.” But at the same time, the promoters are like, “Well, I’m paying the money for guys that are selling these tickets, that are putting a—es in seats.” So there’s got to be a balance. It’s one thing to be a good fighter and let the promotion push you, but the promotion is more about the promotion. So if you want to be great and make some big money, you need to learn about that selling aspect that I think all the guys can use a little refresher course, because all of them are trying to be Conor right now.
Tickets for WWE’s WrestleMania 38, taking place on April 2-3 at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, TX, recently went on sale and are available via Seat Geek
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