Bobby Lashley: Smackdown Superstar a Regular Guy

Source: Colorado Springs Gazette

By BILL REED – THE GAZETTE

Bobby Lashley lives two very different lives.

Half the time, he lives in a nice but unassuming townhouse in southeast Colorado Springs. He is the loving father of a 19-month-old girl. He wipes her nose and changes her diaper. And on Fridays, she looks up at the TV and says “Daddy! Daddy!”

What she sees on the screen is the fastest-rising star on World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Smackdown.” Bobby Lashley is a bona fide tough guy who lets his massive body do the talking — tossing opponents into the air like scarecrows, wreaking havoc and crushing them with a move he calls The Dominator.

“I don’t beg from the crowd,”

Lashley said. “I just kind of give them the look. They see it’s business, it’s time for work, time for serious destruction. I give them what they want, and they give me what I need.”

Lashley, 30, made his debut on “Smackdown” on Sept. 23, 2005, and in less than a year he was crowned the U.S. Champion. He was named Rookie of the Year for 2005 in Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s readers poll, the Oscars of the wrestling world. A combination of injuries to other “Smackdown” stars and fans’ love of Lashley catapulted him into the main event.

“If he didn’t fill that void, WWE would have been in trouble,” said Eric Cohen, professional wrestling guide for About.com. “The fans just immediately loved him, and he’s taken great advantage of the situation.”

Though the outcomes of WWE matches are staged, a champion still must be a believable winner who gets a reaction from the crowd, someone writers and fans can believe in.

That’s not too hard with Lashley. He’s part of a growing trend of top amateur wrestlers being recruited into the world of professional wrestling — led by Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle — a trend that connects Colorado Springs and the Olympic Training Center to the raucous WWE.

“I think Kurt has a big influence on that,” Lashley said. “And they need as many strong athletes as they can get. It can’t be any old guy off the street to be a pro wrestler.”

Lashley grew up wrestling, winning state titles in high school in Kansas and national titles in college at Missouri Valley College. He came to Colorado Springs in 2000 as part of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program and trained at the Olympic Training Center as a freestyle wrestler. That’s where he met Angle.

“He told me, ‘I can talk to the right people and possibly get you in,’” Lashley recalled. “It was a dream come true.”

The talent scouts for the WWE liked what they saw in Lashley and signed him to a development deal. He headed to Louisville, Ky., for Ohio Valley Wrestling, sort of the minor leagues for professional wrestling.

Lashley changed his style for the pro game, learning to involve the crowd and cater to their desires. He learned flashy moves, and instead of dropping weight, he bulked up.

“Now, I’m a pretty big dude,” said Lashley, who is listed at 6-foot-3 and 273 pounds.

Shon Lewis, head coach of the World Class Athlete Program wrestling team, recently flipped on “Smackdown” to see his former student.

“Last week, I saw him for the first time. I was just smiling as I watched the TV,” Lewis said. “He was always hungry to win, a hard worker, and a fun guy to be around. You won’t find him wearing a tight shirt downtown — he’ll be in a baggy shirt kicked back in a corner.”

Lewis thought it was kind of “funny” when Lashley made the jump to pro wrestling, but it also made perfect sense.

“Everybody knew he would be a good fit, because he’s a nice-looking young man and he had the physique,” he said. “He jumped out there and grabbed the bull by the horns. We’re all proud of him, and he hasn’t forgotten us. He’s still part of the family.”

Lewis said the most striking thing about Lashley was his chiseled physique. He was still honing his technique on the elite wrestling level, but his power and explosiveness were awesome.

That is easy to see, even on the boob tube. When Lashley got the call to wrestle on the big show, the crowd liked him right away.

“It was incredible,” Lashley said. “I didn’t know how I was going to react with all those people out there. When I came out of that curtain, the crowd gave me a really warm welcome. The crowd gave me the fuel to go and go.”

Cohen remembers the moment Lashley entered the ring.

“It was amazing,” he said. “When he came on the screen, it was like, ‘Whoa, who is this guy?’ You just knew you were seeing a star.”

Cohen said there are plenty of big, slow thugs in wrestling, but Lashley performs his moves with “a burst of speed that makes the fans rise to their feet. The fans love him already.”

As the titleholder, Lashley developed an onstage rivalry with King Booker (formerly Booker T.) and his band of hooligans. One week he is fighting off the whole crew with a steel chair. The next week he is dueling Booker in a steel cage showdown. Lashley is a good guy in the ring, but also a tough guy.

The big man’s title was stripped on July 14 in a shocking loss to Irish wrestler Finlay, who secured the win with the help of his shillelagh and a leprechaun named Little Bastard.

He was scheduled to fight for the title today in a WWE pay-per-view, but the company pulled him out. The WWE Web site says Lashley has elevated enzymes of the liver — a report confirmed by wrestlingobserver.com, which covers pro wrestling as a business.

WWE works hard to keep Lashley hidden away in the land of leprechauns and drummedup drama. The company carefully guards its prized properties, not allowing pictures of Lashley outside the ring and monitoring his interviews.

WWE spokesman Joe Villa said the company limits information about its new star “due to his character and the privacy of his family.”

The concern is not only that a wrestler might acknowledge that matches are predetermined, but that fans might see the softer, human side of a tough guy like Lashley. The WWE is in the business of confusing fantasy and reality, and too much reality gets in the way.

“Smackdown’s” cast performs live shows across the country on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights, and then on Tuesdays tapes the action to air on Friday’s “Smackdown” broadcast.

Lashley gets to be home with his little girl Wednesday through Saturday, and also spend quality time with his massage therapist, chiropractor, inversion table and stretching mat.

“Longevity is the key in this business,” he said.

In real life, Lashley is intelligent and soft-spoken, not at all like the buffoonish stereotype of a professional wrestler. His personality bleeds into his character on WWE, who is billed as a “soft-spoken but hard-hitting” wrestler, a model of quiet determination.

“He seems more like a regular guy you could hang out with. It’s a nice change of pace,” Cohen said. “Maybe it’s time for a wrestler who does it with his actions.”

He performs for an audience of millions on TV every Friday night; there’s now a line of Lashley T-shirts, and you can get Lashley wallpaper for your computer.

As his fame grows, Lashley is beginning to think about what he wants to represent to his fans, and it’s no accident that he seems like a regular guy. He doesn’t want to be a superhero, just a normal guy who can toss huge men into the air.

“I paid my dues, and I struggled, and I trained hard to get where I’m at,” Lashley said. “I am an ordinary person, I just do extraordinary things. There’s no limit to what you can do.”

FROM ONE RING TO ANOTHER

A sampling of pro wrestlers, past and present, with amateur wrestling backgrounds:

KURT ANGLE:

Won a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Olympics. Seamlessly adjusted to “sports entertainment” and is considered one of the company’s top performers in the past decade. Still employed, but giving his body a rest.

SHELTON BENJAMIN:

Was an All-American at Minnesota in 1997 and ’98. Given two Intercontinental Championship runs, he has become one of the rising stars of WWE.

CHARLIE HAAS:

Former captain at Seton Hall. In WWE, he’s stuck in the lower card (and even off the card) despite his technical ability.

BROCK LESNAR:

Won the NCAA heavyweight title in 2000 and was runner-up in 1999. Became the youngest WWE champ in history in 2002. Left after Wrestlemania XX in 2004 for a pro football career.

JACK AND GERALD BRISCO:

One of the legendary tag teams in pro wrestling history. Jack wrestled at Oklahoma, Gerald at Oklahoma State.