As AEW Full Gear awaits, Bobby Lashley wants greatness just as much as he ever has

Bobby Lashley is excited about professional wrestling again.

It comes across as the most general statement ever, someone having the nerve to express interest in their chosen field. But it’s deeper than wanting to show up — it’s that "first day at the new job" excitement you get when the office lights are brighter, when everything smells new, when you lay out your clothes the night before to have one less step in preparation. Having that type of enthusiasm almost 20 years into an endeavor is rare, but if there’s ever a career steeped in rarity, it’s the career of Lashley. He’s won amateur wrestling championships at the state, collegiate and military levels. He’s amassed a 15-2 MMA record while also fulfilling all manner of pro wrestling obligations over an eight-year span. He had one of the best second runs in WWE to date, becoming one of the top champions of his generation after learning and growing outside of the WWE ecosystem. So as he prepares for his debut at AEW’s Full Gear pay-per-view event Saturday, it’s that same excitement that has him ready to dominate a brand new scene.

When you’re pitching your wrestling organization to a veteran, especially a veteran with options, what you’re really selling is your culture. Lashley, heading toward the end of his second WWE stint, could’ve renewed his contract and coasted to retirement, as his in-ring presence had been reduced over the final few months. The past five years had already solidified him as one of wrestling's strongest talents, becoming a multi-time WWE champion and leading a group of suited-and-booted badasses composed of his real-life travel buddies, dubbed The Hurt Business. But for Lashley, it wasn’t about collecting a check and resting on his accomplishments; he knew he had more to give and was willing to embrace a change of scenery to do so. After witnessing Tony Khan’s enthusiasm for bringing him in, and seeing legends like Sting get the proper sendoff to their storied careers, he knew AEW would be his next move.

“You want to do it the right way,” Lashley explains, reflecting on his process to keep pushing himself, “This business of wrestling is a business of paying back some of the things that you were afforded and given. I feel like if I were able to give back and retire the way that I wanted to, then I would have possibly retired. But there was so much more that I wanted to do.”

It’s Lashley's longevity, and in turn, who his veterans are, that make his statement so strong. Upon debuting in WWE in fall of 2005, Lashley was thrust onto the scene against a who’s who of '90s wrestling brawlers, many of whom still work in wrestling in a coaching or training capacity. “I've been around some great, great mentors in the business, and I always take my hat off to some of the people that I work with all the way, dating back to, like, Fit Finlay," Lashley says.

"Just to be able to pick his brain and understand some of the things that he was doing to William Regal, to JBL [former WWE champion John Bradshaw Layfield], to Undertaker, to Batista, to all these guys that I had an opportunity to be in the ring with and really be able to pick their brain.” Finlay and Regal both still work with burgeoning talent at the WWE Performance Center, while Layfield has had a resurgence on the independent wrestling scene. Long past their days of competing for world championships, the Finlays and Regals of the world put a young Lashley through his paces, helping him add the brawling and technical aspects of the wrestling game to his repertoire. Lashley took the tools passed down to him and had an impressive three-year run with WWE, winning the United States and ECW championships.

The idea of a “fumble” is grossly overused in professional wrestling circles, but it’s tough to call Lashley’s 2008 release anything but. WWE had a budding star on its hands that had the look and in-ring ability to be a major player for years to come, but internal issues led to Lashley’s departure, so he spent a year on the independent scene before joining TNA Wrestling in 2009. There, he began to maximize his potential. Whereas WWE was the machine, with a clear vision of what it wanted to produce from start to finish, TNA was a place that allowed for more freedom in its system. "What it was when I was in WWE [the first time], it was paint by numbers. I was doing what I was told," Lashley says.

"It was just, 'Do this, do this, do this.' When I had an opportunity to go to TNA, I really got an opportunity to find myself a little bit. It was almost like less direction ... gave me the opportunity to just say, 'All right, do you, and let's see what that is.' And when I did that, I was able to really start playing around with my character.” Perhaps the most important thing Lashley discovered was the on-screen services of longtime friend and coworker, Montel Vontavious Porter, more commonly known as MVP. The two became close during their initial WWE runs as members of the burgeoning "SmackDown" brand roster. Once they linked up in TNA, Porter became Lashley's manager and confidant while still being an in-ring competitor.

Introduced to WWE audiences as a Terrell Owens-styled diva, Porter’s penchant for trash talk fit perfectly with Lashley's hyper-athletic, brutal wrestling prowess. They formed The Beat Down Clan, a stable of top TNA talents with Lashley as its centerpiece. And what Lashley found was an edge. He donned his trademark headband and ran roughshod over the company, joining the short list of talents to win TNA's World Heavyweight, King of the Mountain and X Division championships.

Today, AEW has the most realized version of the Lashley/MVP unit: The Hurt Syndicate.

During the pandemic, while acts like The Bloodline took off and The Four Horsewomen and Asuka showcased the strength of WWE’s women’s division, friends and travel buddies Lashley, Porter, Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander come together as The Hurt Business. While Alexander and Benjamin operated as a tag team and secured the "WWE Raw" tag team titles, Lashley was once more the solo act of the crew, winning the United States and eventually WWE championships, as Porter once more operated as consigliere. More Four Horsemen than Nation of Domination or even nWo, the quartet was always dressed to the nines, surrounded by women and champagne, ready to fight any and all comers.

What made the group work so well is they were executing the plans they’d discussed all throughout their time on the road, as opposed to being thrust together in the hopes that something might shake.

"In this business, a lot of times they put factions together, and you can look at some of the factions now and you could say, 'Well yeah, they're together, but they're not together. They're playing a role. They're playing an act. They're not really like that.' They're just, ‘OK, we're here on TV day, and we do what we have to do, and we say we're a group, but we're not really a group.’

"I think that whether a crowd was there or they were watching [us] on screens or watching it on TV, they realized, ‘Man, these dudes are actually a team. These guys are actually together. These guys are actually fighting with each other.’ It was just something that was real, man. It really was real. Every night after TV, we would go out to this little sports bar, and we would all just sit around and joke. We'd have flights the next morning … and we would spend hours there just bullsh***ing, just joking around, eating chicken wings, having a drink, whatever the case was.”

It came as a surprise to most fans when, coming out of the pandemic, WWE opted not to keep the unit going in front of live crowds. No one was more surprised than Lashley, who was at his peak in both artistry and accolades. “I really don't know [why]," he says. "I think we should have gotten an opportunity. We stepped up during the pandemic. It was a hard time for a lot of people. I remember I was flying every week. Some people didn't want to, some people couldn't, whatever the case was. But we really stepped up at that time. I think we should've at least had that opportunity to carry it on when we did have the crowds back — which, we didn't get that opportunity to, which was unfortunate.”

In a similar fashion to the 1996 Hall and Nash exodus to WCW, former Hurt Business members began appearing on AEW television, one by one, slowly forming their mission statement. First, Porter confronted Prince Nana, who was both the hype man and money man backing former AEW world champion Swerve Strickland. Channeling Beanie Sigel’s film debut, the message was fairly simple: The pairing would either get down to Porter’s plans or lay down. Next, a revitalized Shelton Benjamin immediately jumped into competition, looking very much like the 2004 version that feuded with WWE’s top talents. Finally, Lashley emerged as the third man, immediately taking out Strickland and setting up their singles match at Full Gear. The Hurt Syndicate, which Porter trademarked prior to the group signing, now stands tall and has a firm plan in place for AEW. "It's such a great organization for people because you have so many different levels to go through," Lashley says. "'OK, [Porter] on the mic, you [have] to fight him. Everybody's talking about promos. You got to get on the mic, you got to battle him.' Then Shelton — Shelton is that guy that can do everything. He can go with anyone, so you can do that.

"Then we have the young guy that we're going to try to find. That's going to be our high-flyer that you can have exciting flip-flops and it go all over the place [similar to the role Alexander occupied]. Then the last one ... you have that last boss. You have me that you have to go through. You just have to be able to compete with us. When we were first together, you had to be able to hold your own against everyone without just getting run over. If we run over you, then you're done. Move on. We go to the next person. But if you're able to hold your own, just be able to not get murdered by P on the mic, not get murdered by me in the ring, be able to go with Sheldon and not be able to get smoked there, and to be able to move and be able to do some stuff with whoever else we bring on, then it will make your career."

The first person whose feet are to be put to that fire is no stranger to harsh flames.

Strickland, former underutilized WWE talent turned AEW history-maker, is Lashley’s very first opponent in AEW on Saturday. Strickland's reluctance to join up with The Hurt Syndicate seems to have earned him Lashley’s respect and disdain at the same time. There’s commonality with the two in the pioneer park of wrestling. While Strickland is AEW’s first Black world champion, Lashley is on a few unique lists as well: He’s the first Black ECW world champion (albeit under the WWE banner), the first Black TNA world champion, the third Black WWE champion, and the second Black man to hold the WWE championship twice. While there’s a definite appreciation for all that Strickland has done, Lashley is resolute on the idea that Strickland still has some lessons to learn and that he’s the right teacher for the test.

“[Strickland has done] just an incredible job of really bringing himself to that next level [since joining AEW]. So, of course, when we went over there, we were like, ‘We need that fourth person,’" Lashley says. "We just feel like we could have helped him out in his career. But like [Porter] would say often, that youthful exuberance has shut us down, and he just didn't want to. He wanted to do it on his own because that's how he's made it. That stubbornness is something that we all had early on in our career. That's what I'm here for. You know what it is — the hard head makes a soft ass. Hey, we're not coming over to AEW to bring people down. We're there to bring people up. If you don't understand that, we're just going to have to show you. That's what it is. The match with me and Swerve is just big brother sticking his foot in the ass of a kid that just doesn't understand that we're trying to help you, kid.”

Lashley minces no words about his ultimate goal. While he feels he has more to offer, with brand new matches, new feuds and new ways to showcase the talents of himself and his crew, he’s coming for the AEW world championship. We’ve seen wrestlers move into new territories and put together lists of the people they want to face most. Outside of whoever’s holding that world title, Lashley’s list is less about names and more a meeting place: The middle of that ring. “I think I'm the bar," he says, "and that's why I want to win the title. Whoever has that title, that's who I want to go after.

"So right now, [Jon] Moxley has the title, so that's on the list. Because I think once I get that title, all those other guys that are fighting, that are racing, that are going for it, they're going to be coming after me, and I'm going to be that standard that they have to be able to meet. My goal is to be that person that everybody wants to see. Of course, there's people in there that I'm like, ‘Man, that would be a cool match. That would be a cool matchup.' What I like the best is those matchups that you don't even think about. Some of those guys that you're like, 'I didn't even really think about that one. But that would be pretty cool to watch.' ... My run in TNA, I wrestled everyone. Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Drew [McIntyre], Bobby Roode. There were so many great matches that I had with Eric Young.

"It was because I had that opportunity to be able to make it to that level. That's what I want to do. They were coming after me.”

Lashey has found success outside of the WWE before. Now he's looking to further cement his place as one of the top wrestlers of the modern era. While most in his position might be looking to slow down, Lashley’s foot is on the gas, as he feels he not only has more to give, but more to gain going forward. He wants it, he wants it bad, and maybe badder than ever. “I don't take things half-ass," he says. "I'm training my ass off right now like I did when I first started my career. Once I can't do that or once my body tells me, 'Let's slow down, let's take a different direction,' then I'm going to listen to my body, and I'm going to listen to my family also. I have kids that I love, being a part of my kids' life. I love watching them succeed and go through their journey through sports and through school and everything like that. Once it starts becoming not enjoyable and taken away from my family and things like that, then I have to make those decisions.

"Right now, I just don't really see an end in sight. ... As long as it's still fun, I have an opportunity [with The] Hurt Syndicate now and work with two of my great friends in the wrestling business and just in life in general, so I just want to keep rolling and keep going as far as we can possibly push this thing.”