The worlds of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts will collide on a major scale yet again when Bobby Lashley steps into the Bellator MMA cage on Friday. He walks into the heavyweight division as the current TNA World Heavyweight champion, but that will not mean a thing to combat fans. Much of the fight-sports community may know of Lashley for his accolades in the world of choreographed fighting, but this run is an attempt to gain MMA fame at the same time.
The fighter known as “The Dominator” will bring a 10-2 record when he debuts during Bellator 123. Most fans and experts alike would pick Lashley‘s record apart for the lack of wins against viable competition in the sport. Victories over Wes Sims and Bob Sapp are perhaps his best wins to date. Unfortunately for Lashley, his two defeats have come to James Thompson and Chad Griggs; two fighters who could be considered “journeymen” in most mainstream circles. Still, that has not deterred the athlete from attempting to make another run in mixed martial arts.
“I want to swing for the fences and go after some of the bigger names,” Lashley told Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie. “This is my last run, so I don’t want to make it gradual. Some of these next few fights, there’s some guys I really want to get in the cage with.”
Bellator MMA is the right place for Lashley to attempt this push. Since bringing Scott Coker into the company as the new president, it’s clear that the company is looking to move more towards entertainment than the strict format that handcuffed the company. Match making will now favor a more creative approach with the intention of attracting the mainstream combat-sports fan.
“I think what we want to see is where our championship fights put star vs. star, so we’re going back to basics,” Coker said in a report by Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports. “We’re going to build the company with a strong foundation and move forward from there.”
Lashley is coming around at the perfect time for Bellator MMA to use him as a part of that foundation. The heavyweight division is one of the more prominent groups in combat sports. Bellator does not have a strong roster of heavyweights and Lashley can quickly find himself in position to challenge for their world title. He immediately has more star power than current heavyweight champion Vitaly Minakov. When paired with the fact that he is the current TNA wrestling heavyweight champion, the cross promotional opportunities would be abundant. Even through outlets such as TMZ are reporting that Spike television is separating themselves from the TNA wrestling promotion, there is still value that can be pulled from his presence in Bellator‘s circle cage.
Lashley will also greatly benefit during this return if he can string together victories. His initial attempt to gain Brock Lesnar-like fame in the world of mixed martial arts did not go so well, but he still has enough name value to be worth Bellator‘s investment. However, he still needs to win and that fact makes his coming fight against Josh Burns just as important for Bellator MMA as it is for Lashley himself.
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