TNA star Bobby Lashley recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard, and below are some interview highlights:
On how wrestling has helped his MMA career:
“Pro wrestling has absolutely helped my fighting,” said Lashley. “For starters, I’ve seen the ratings, but the one thing pro wrestling really helped with is being in front of such big crowds. I was a part of the largest WrestleMania ever, so I know how to feed off the energy from the crowd in my fights.”
On working with Donald Trump at WrestleMania 23:
“I wanted to see how Trump conducted himself behind the scenes,” said Lashley. “He’s the real deal. He understands success, and everything he did was top notch. A lot of the success from that WrestleMania was because of him.”
On his experience in TNA and its future:
“TNA and Bellator were both on Spike, and Bellator approached me about fighting for them,” explained Lashley. “We were both interested in each other, and I was able to work out a contract to do both.”
“TNA is incredible,” said Lashley. “Dixie Carter is a huge MMA fan. She’s pushing my career as much as I am. She’s like, ‘You need time off? Take time off.’ The way it’s set up in TNA is we don’t do TV every week. We do blocks of TV. The last time I really had to work was the end of July, and we put together 14 weeks of TV. I’ve been training since then.”
“I have the security of my body being healthy and I know I can fight for the duration of my career. I’ve also built my name up in wrestling enough where I have a little bit of security in that genre. If TNA is not around, I can still get my wrestling fix other places.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
