(photo via Sherdog.com)
The hype behind Bobby Lashley (5-1) was pretty much all but deflated after his loss to Chad Griggs at the Strikeforce: Houston event this past August. Many were waiting for the TNA wrestler to fall and rejoiced as Lashley quickly gassed out in the first round against Griggs.
Lashley has come out to explain his side of the fight as well as his poor performance from that night.
On Monday, Lashley was a guest on “The MMA Hour” over at MMAFighting.com. During the segment Lashley goes on to say that his health was not 100% going into the fight, and that if it was, he would have defeated Griggs easily.
Just two days before the fight, Lashley says he was admitted to hospital for dehydration, and that blood work done while in hospital after his loss, showed that he was suffering from mononucleosis. Lashley say’s he’s better and already looking to return in 2010, looking for a rematch with Griggs. Now that the pressure of being undefeated is off he can concentrate on fighting.
“I already asked for a rematch, because when you have certain events like I did that sort of hindered me from being able to open up and fight, I’ve got to go back. I’d hate for them to use that fight to boost somebody’s career, saying, ‘Okay, he beat Bobby,’ because that wasn’t really the case. If I didn’t have these problems, and I’d been able to go out there and fight, I think it would have been a pretty quick win for me. But I just didn’t have anything in me.”
“When I went to the hospital afterwards, they said I was really dehydrated. I went to hospital on Thursday before the fight because I wasn’t feeling very good. I was just sluggish and not feeling good, so I went to urgent care and got checked out. I thought I was going to be okay. We didn’t do any blood work, but they gave me an IV because they said I was a little dehydrated then and when I went in there and fought I didn’t have anything in me….”
“Now I’m just going to go out there and fight. I’m not going to have any pressure on me. If they want to keep that as a loss, then keep that as a loss so I have a loss, because now I’m just going to go out there and fight. Because once you have a loss, you’re not undefeated anymore so now I don’t have to worry about that. So I can just go out there and fight.”