How a bank robbery set Lashley’s career course
Bobby Lashley: “This guy kicked the door down and shot at me. I took a dive down to the ground, landed on my knee, split my knee wide open and I had to go to surgery.”
The path from top wrestler to mixed martial arts fighter is well traveled, but Bobby Lashley’s journey is not like the others.
It was 2003. Lashley was 26, a three time NAIA Collegiate National Champion and 2004 Olympic hopeful training in Colorado Springs, CO.
A routine trip to the bank changed everything.
Joe Nguyen has the story for The Denver Post.
“This guy kicked the door down and shot at me,” Lashley recalled of the robbery attempt. “I took a dive down to the ground, landed on my knee, split my knee wide open and I had to go to surgery afterward.
“It was a crazy situation. It ended my amateur wrestling career.”
It didn’t end his athletic career, however. After surgery and a couple of months of rehabilitation, Lashley decided to become a pro wrestler. At 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds of solid muscle, he had the look, and the moves, to perform in the ring. He signed with WWE and eventually performed in the main event on its grandest stage, at WrestleMania 23.
And now, at age 38, after more than a decade in pro wrestling, he’s moved into Act III of his career, looking to rise in the ranks of mixed martial arts, something he’s dabbled in the past few years as he reduced his wrestling schedule.
“My focus is completely on fighting. Wrestling is an afterthought right now,” said Lashley at his American Top Team Altitude mixed martial arts facility in Aurora.
Lashley is scheduled to face heavyweight Dan Charleson Friday on the Bellator 138 card in St. Louis.
“He’s the real deal,” Bellator MMA president Scott Coker said. “He has a real wrestling background. He’s in the right training camps now. He has an amazing physique, speaks well — an overall good representative of what we’re about.”
Lashley signed a nine-fight contract with Bellator in March, knowing that at his age this will be his one chance to make it big with MMA.
“This is my last run because I’m not 21 years old anymore, and I feel like with the momentum that I have behind me, I’m moving in one direction,” he said. “I’m not going to be one of those journeymen fighters that are just taking fights everywhere — you win some, you lose some. If I don’t see that title as being attainable, then I’m going to sit back and say, ‘Is this what I want to do?’ “
A win over Charles would put Lashley one step closer to getting a fight for the championship belt.
“I’m not going to commit that he would get a title shot, but he would be right up there,” Coker said.