Bobby Lashley: From Olympic Dreams to WWE Superstar
Bobby Lashley, one of the most impressive physical fighters today, is not only a star in the ring, but also in the Bellator MMA cage. Lashley has been a WWE Superstar and one of the most credible champions in GFW Impact Wrestling.
Lashley, like Brock Lesnar, was a collegiate wrestling champion and was on the verge of competing in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but a knee injury, caused during a bank robbery that he witnessed, shattered his dreams.
But how did he decide to enter the world of professional wrestling? Lashley revealed the story in an interview on Sam Roberts' podcast.
"Kurt Angle knew how much I wanted to go to the Olympics, but that I needed to pursue something else afterwards, considering that collegiate wrestling has no professional equivalent. So Kurt gave my phone number to Gerald Brisco to give me a tryout with WWE."
"But my goal was the Olympics, I wanted to succeed there, so I cancelled the tryout to focus on training."
"Then the robbery happened. My knee hit the floor hard, it broke, and I had to go through rehabilitation. One day, I was sitting there, looking at my knee brace, thinking that everything was terrible, that it was all over, when suddenly the phone rings. It was Mark Carrano from WWE."
"I didn't think they were going to call me, because there had been no communication for about five or six months. Carrano told me that WWE had heard many rumors, but that they were interested in me. He asked me to go to Louisville, Kentucky, a week later. I kept delaying the date because I didn't want to tell them that my knee was broken."
"I didn't believe they were going to call me, because there had been no communication for about five or six months. Carrano told me that WWE had heard many rumors, but that they were interested in me. He asked me to go to Louisville, Kentucky, a week later. I kept delaying the date because I didn't want to tell them that my knee was broken."
His tryout:
"As soon as I could walk, I went. The first thing they made me do was run the ropes, and that's one of the most ridiculously painful experiences I've had. Tom Prichard told me he liked the intensity I showed as I bounced off the ropes, but I wanted to cry from the pain. Dolph Ziggler was there that time and we became friends. Every night we had tryouts, we went back to where we were staying and we had a couple of drinks."
"I put a lot of ice on my knees. It was four consecutive days of testing where I learned things like running the ropes and taking falls on the canvas. On Friday morning, after four days of training with those guys, I felt like I had been hit by a car. My ankle was scraped, my back was injured, and my knee was hurting. I arrived home in extreme pain. And I thought they just wanted to talk to me! Before going, I did a lot of push-ups to look good, but they made me work really hard."