Bobby Lashley's MMA Debut

[Frank the Frowner]

Former professional wrestler, Bobby Lashley, will be making his long-awaited debut in MMA. December 13th seems to be the date as Lashley confirmed. “We have the contract in hand right now and we are just working out all the details but December 13th will be the date.” Lashley told MMANews.

Although the promotion that he is fighting for is currently unclear due to contract negotiations, Lashley was able to say that the event will be in Florida, and will be held at the American Airlines Arena.

Since his announcement that he will be fighting in Mixed Martial Arts, Lashley has been training at American Top Team in Florida where some of the sport’s biggest stars have come from. Fighters like Thiago Alves, Wilson Gouveia, “JZ” Calvancante and Thiago Silva all call ATT home.

The American Airlines Arena is a pretty major arena, and it appears that Lashley is going to have a pretty high-profile MMA debut. How successful do you see him being?

Personally, I think he has a chance to succeed, and possibly even make it to the UFC down the road. He has very good amateur wrestling credentials, to say the very least, and is training with American Top Team... so at least he's going to step into a ring being more credible than Kimbo Slice ever was.

I don't see him ever being like Brock is right now, though. Brock is actually younger than Lashley, and is still improving. Lashley also is nowhere as big as he used to be in the WWE, therefore he won't be able to use his size to dominate his opponents like Brock can. How much natural fighting ability he has remains to be seen as well. Sure, he can wrestle, but how good of a fighter can he be?

 

[Y 2 Jake]

Lashley had a wrestling match a couple of weeks ago, he was just as roided as last time he was on WWE TV. So I doubt very much we'll be seeing him in a quality promotion any time soon. Unless all that muscle is natural, which I doubt.

 

[Frank the Frowner]

This was the last picture I had seen of Lashley. This was when he was still rehabbing his injury and was going to be back at some point. Then he was on HDNet's Inside MMA the other night, and he looked as big as ever. He's going to be fighting in the American Fight League... whatever the hell that is, in December.

Bas Rutten (who hosts the show) actually said that Lashley's being smart by working his way up, rather than taking on top competition right away like Lesnar.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

But Lesnar's first UFC fight was a co-main event, and as a co-main event he's getting paid more than Lashley. And saying that is fuckin' stupid, Lashely would take a UFC match if they asked him. It's just that they won't ask him until he's got at least a fight under him, and it's pointless if he's on steroids.

Also, who exactly is Bobby Lashley to the MMA community? He's all but forgotten in wrestling.

 

[Kasey]

Lashley is going the smart route, if you ask me. He understands that he may have weaknesses and that he needs to capitalize on that and let his game season while he works his way up. Lesnar is a naturally gifted freak of nature, but it's yet to be seen if he can hang with the elite in the heavyweight division. Yes, he beat Herring. But yes, Herring has be a perennial doormat and underachiever when facing top competition. Just ask Nog (3 times) and Fedor (once was enough). This is why Lesnar lost to Mir. Inexperience. So now he's already thrown to the deep end with a master gameplanner and a guy who is conditioned and can wrestle like a sonuvabitch.

Lashley probably knows that his own standup game is deficient (hence training with Bob Cook and AKA). He also knows that if his ground game is too weak, a guy with half the ground arsenal of a Nogueira or Werdum would tear off one of his limbs. Lashley should give it about ten fights to gauge as a sort of litmus test to see if he has the tools to progress to the big time. Otherwise, he could be a big, black, American version of Giant Silva.