Ha ha! My man!
With WWE 2K20 set to release on October 22, 2K and Visual Concepts held a pre-Friday Night Smackdown event in the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas, giving press time to preview the game and meet and mingle with some WWE Superstars. UPROXX was lucky enough to be there, and of course the first person we wanted to talk to was Bobby Lashley.
Lashley’s been a hot topic of conversation as of late, from his “holy shit” Raw opening that really should’ve been the moment to usher in the new stage and set, to his very different kind of holy shit Raw ending making out with Lana. We sat down with the All Mighty to talk … well, that, as well as other, less controversial topics, such as Tecmo Super Bowl and his future NXT run. No, really.
With Spandex: So, uh, how you been feeling about the last couple of weeks of TV? What’s the response been?
Bobby Lashley: I’m the luckiest man in the world. Yeah, something awesome. Something new, something different. You know, with me, I’m not so big on social media. I’m not a big vocal person most of the time. I think they’re just trying to see different layers of me and… this is fun. I mean, Lana is … she is smoking.
Well, we’re certainly seeing some layers of you.
But you know, it’s kind of one of those things where what do you do when somebody takes your girl and you can’t do anything about it. That’s the whole storyline.
My favorite thing about that whole bit is people on Twitter who are like, “Bobby’s going into business for himself with that leg grab.”
Damn right. Go big or go home.
There’s a lot of that on Raw as of late. There’s that, there’s the Mike and Maria Kanellis baby story, there’s Drake Maverick not being able to sleep with his wife because of the 24/7 Championship. There’s a whole lot of cuckolding and marital infidelity going on.
There’s a little mix. When I grew up watching wrestling, it was just chaos all the time and that’s why we liked it. We went away from that for a little while, but I think the chaos is starting to come back. I want to see people get beat up really bad. I’ve got a number of people that I’m going to come back and beat up really bad. Then the storylines with the women, that’s always something that wrestling has had forever and we’re going back there.
The people on top, the people that are putting pen to paper on it, it’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be great. I told them, I said, “You know what? There’s people that won’t and there’s people that will, and fuck, I’m all the way will.” I think it’s going to be fun. I’m ready to do anything. I feel like I’m 20 years old, man.
We’re here talking about WWE 2K20. Were you ever into video games?
I used to be huge into video games, but there was a little span where I had to take it easy a little bit with the kids and raising the kids and everything, but now my kids are back at that age where they’re playing all the time. I get in there and I mix it up with them. Yesterday was football. Me and my son’s big into football right now. His team’s doing amazing so we did a lot of football yesterday, but this game, of course, the WWE game, they love to turn on and see dad and do all that stuff. So I’m back in it. Any man is going to spend a little time in video games. That’s just being being a man. I love it and I’m really excited to get an opportunity to play this one.
Now I know you were in the games back like 2007, 2008. You still get a kick out of seeing yourself in these?
Yes. It’s still a trip, because sometimes when we break away from things we lose touch of, I guess, reality, because some things like this happen and we’re “Oh, cool.”, but no, it’s a big deal man, being on a video game and having my kids be able to play it and then I can just turn it on. It’s a trip man. It’s awesome.
Did you have any favorite games when you were younger?
I was a big Tecmo Super Bowl [fan]. Yeah. Tecmo Bowl was it. Tecmo Bowl was the favorite, but then Street Fighter of course. Street Fighter was great. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat. Man, there were so many games that I played over the time.
So how do you feel about you’re a former hype man winning the Cruiserweight Title in NXT?
Man, it’s awesome man. I’m happy for him. I already gave him a call and hit him up and told him if he needs any help keeping that title, I’m a phone call away man. I think we got to do something, for him to have the title run and I not show up at all, that’s what we’re going to be missing the boat there. Hopefully I can get in there and maybe throw around some little guys and help him retain that title, because he helped me for an entire year, so I owe him one.
I was going to say, you would be a true giant in the world of NXT, wouldn’t you?
I bet.
You can go jump the NXT Champion, he’s standing right over there, Adam Cole.
Oh, okay, but I see Finn came over to kind of mess with him so he might not have that title too long.
There’s a lot of guys who have been pro wrestlers who got into MMA, lot of MMA guys coming into pro wrestling, and you’ve dominated both. What do you think draws sports like that together and makes it work so well?
I think because there’s appreciation all the way across the board. I think a lot of the guys in… There’s misconception with the media that says that the fighters don’t like pro wrestling, which is ridiculous because I ran a role before with professional wrestling and MMA. Cain Velasquez is here. Daniel Cormier loves it. Man, King Mo. All these guys have been calling me up saying, “Hey man, I want to get in. I want to get in.” Arlovski just hit me up not too long ago, Dos Santos. All these guys are big wrestling fans, so the sports is just the same. It’s that violence that people like to see it on TV and entertainment. It’s all wrapped up. It’s all the same. It’s all the same.
How do you think Cain Velasquez is going to do in WWE? Have you seen his lucha libre stuff?
I seen him. He actually can work. I’m interested. I’m interested to see. I’d like to get out there, meet Cain, he’s a super dude, man. I trained with him a couple times and, man, he’s an amazing dude, and I know that he’s putting in the time. Hopefully his body can hang up for the torture and I don’t know what kind of schedule they’re going to put him on. If he’s on the same schedule that we’re running right now, it might be a little challenging, but if he gets a little bit of easy schedule, I think he should be all right.
After you’re done sleeping with other men’s wives, what’s the next career ambition for Bobby Lashley? What’s left in pro wrestling for you to do that you haven’t done yet?
There’s match-ups that everybody wants. There’s matches that I want.
Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar, come on.
I didn’t say it. It’s like the elephant in the room, does anybody see it? It’s so weird because I don’t know him. I’ve really never met him. I’ve really never said more than three words to him.
I met him in passing a couple of times. Saudi was the first time I met him. Literally “Hey, what’s up?” Boom, boom and that was about it. Never said more than two words to him, so I think there’s a little mystique there and also for me. Just being in the fighting world, man, I’ve trained and fought with some of the people that he’s fought with and man, it’s got to happen. It’s got to happen before I hit 50.
