Bobby Lashley has gone from being a guy I haven't cared about for the majority of his career to one of the few highlights of current WWE. An amateur wrestler who also served in the military, when he first hit the scene he was a super green muscle-head freak athlete who Vince attached a rocket ship to, before his career took a really strange turn. Him not getting injured in 2007 may be one of the biggest 'What If' scenarios of the 2000s, but thankfully his return to WWE a decade later has seen him grow into the best run of his career. I've been a low voter on him for a long-time, but in tribute to him reaching his peak only to get done dirty by WWE, I've decided to revisit some of the highlights of his career.
#5. Bobby Lashley vs Finlay, Smackdown 12/5/06
Finlay was the master of working with green meatheads in WCW and helping them develop in the ring, and his series of matches with Lashley was a further use of this skillset. None of those matches had a lot of fireworks or big drama, but they were tightly worked, well put together affairs which helped acclimatise a very green guy to working the longer, more competitive matches need to progress to the upper card. This was the KOTR semi-finals and the longest match Lashley had worked to this point in his career by a considerable margin. Bobby has a great amateur background, and it was cool to see him shoot single legs and control a guy on the ground, something you don’t see a lot of in WWE, especially by big meaty guys. Once Finlay takes over, he really lays it in, all of his clotheslines and uppercuts connecting with a thud. Finlay controls the big guy by grinding him down methodically, and he does a lot of the 'little things' so well, like really digging his elbow into Lashley’s shoulder while in an armbar. We get a very WWE finish with Lashley hulking up from a chairshot and spearing Finlay out of his boots, a sign they really positioning him as a future Hogan-type.
#4. Drew Galloway vs Bobby Lashley, Slammiversary 2016 [Knock Out Or Tap Out]
Interesting to see how these two’s careers have mirrored each other, and what a weird place in time wrestling was here. Two big, athletic dudes beating on each other is a simple recipe for good pro wrestling, and while there wasn’t much else going on, both guys really worked hard to deliver on that. We get some more flashes of Lashley’s amateur wrestling skillset and Drew was lacing him with big chops and hard boots to the grill. A few highlight reel spots with the Air Raid Crash on the steel steps, the armbar lifted into the tombstone, and Drew’s big missed dive through the table, which is a really mad spot for a guy his size. I was really digging the last act as Drew bled, both guys got fired up and more aggressive, but the finish itself felt somewhat abrupt. It’s not often I say a recent match should have gone longer, but they were just reaching their crescendo and could have let it play for a couple more big beats before wrapping up. The crowd were notably deflated at the babyface getting KO’d clean, one last ditch comeback with Drew dying on his sword may have been more satisfying.
#3. Bobby Lashley vs Braun Strowman, Extreme Rules 2019 [Last Man Standing Match]
One of the regular WWE tropes of the last decade is the kaiju city destruction match, and this is a fun iteration of that trope. Two giant guys fighting all over the arena and tossing each other around. Both of them are athletic enough to take some good spills, and I enjoyed the highlight spots of Lashley getting suplexed into the wall and then getting hammer thrown into the Spanish announce area. I liked Braun, always thought he had some intangibles but was largely poorly used by WWE, and he adds a bit of depth to this by coming in with a rib injury and selling the damage throughout. Hardly poet laureate, but it gave the match something more than just the carnage moments. We get your standard WWE memes with the barricade spear and dude getting buried under announce table, and the finish itself was some hammy stuff with Braun powerslamming Bob into a black hole of crash mats before breaking through a not-so-subtlety placed wall of cardboard like an imitation kool aid man, but it wasn’t enough to sour me. For two guys with pretty clear limitations, this exceeded expectations – one of the best of both men’s runs.
#2. John Cena vs Bobby Lashley, The Great American Bash 2007
Real clash of the titans match feel, Lashley was basically being pushed as the new Cena, only even more stacked and muscular. He was clearly being groomed as the future, but Cena was still the present, and he busted his ass to make the future look bright. The opening sections of this are actually the strongest parts of the match and do a great job of establishing their roles and making Lashley look like a phenom. I am always a fan of a good Test Of Strength, and Cena really works his facial expressions to put Lashley over. Then Lashley starts using his superior amateur ability to take Cena down with double legs and swarm him in the mat. This is a really selfless Cena performance, he lets Lashley take like 90% of the match and dominate him. In fairness to Lashley, he also does a good job mixing up his offence with a nice variety of slams and suplexs. It did feel like they missed a few beats in the middle; one minute Lashley is solidly in control, the next Cena is hitting his finishers in desperation – it did work as Cena wanting to end the match ASAP though.
We get the big finish with Cena having to hit a Super FU to put Lashley down, and a post-match handshake to top it off. This was almost Jumbo vs Misawa with 2 WWE meatheads, and while it wasn’t one of Cena’s best matches of 2007, it was another notch on his belt for his banner year. It was also a big show of faith in Lashley, which makes it more hilarious he only had one more match on TV after this before being shelved for 6 months then released.
#1. Bobby Lashley vs King Booker, Smackdown 23/6/06
These guys wrestled on an almost weekly basis for like 3 months, and similar to the Finlay series the goal was to help Lashley develop in the ring, while also elevating Booker as a top heel act. Most of their matches were pretty blah (including their KOTR Finals on PPV) but this is a hidden gem. Booker was always far better as a face, but he clicked as a heel on this night. He was really laying into Lashley, lighting him up with chops and stiff kicks and clotheslines. Lashley comes in with a bum wheel and Book targets it throughout. Bobby has some really explosive power, and all his comebacks felt much more earned after enduring all the damage to the bad leg. We get a stink finish with Finlay and Regal interfering and Lashley standing tall with a steel chair, but who cares when it’s a mid-card match on TV to build to a bigger blow-off. Smackdown 2006 had a lot of painful booking but plenty of sneaky awesome matches on TV, and this is probably the best match from Lashley’s star-making rivalry.
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