MVP details how an injury led to his association with Bobby Lashley in IMPACT.
Currently together in AEW as part of The Hurt Syndicate, Bobby Lashley and MVP were first paired on-screen as part of the ‘Beat Down Clan’ in IMPACT Wrestling. Back in 2014, MVP brought Lashley into the promotion, leading to the former WWE star defeating Eric Young for the IMPACT World Championship just weeks after his debut. Now, we know more about the initial plans from 11 years ago.
Speaking to CHGO Wrestling, MVP discussed how plans for him to win the IMPACT World Championship were derailed by injury, noting how he stepped aside for Bobby Lashley.
“I appreciate the fact that a lot of people feel that I should have held a few World Championships along the way in my career, but the one time that for sure I was going to was during my time at Impact. A week or two before, I was working on an independent wrestling show in the UK, and I blew out my knee. I was hobbling on crutches and trying to see if I would heal in time enough. I don’t know what the injury was because I didn’t get an MRI, but I couldn’t walk. And then a few weeks later, at the time, management at Impact asked me about my relationship with Bobby Lashley. ‘That’s my dude, man.’ ‘How would you feel about us bringing in Lashley and doing an angle where you bring him in to wrestle in your place?’ And I was like, ‘Run it. Thats’s my guy.’ And what we decided to do was I opted to step aside. And instead of me winning the title, or us putting it off and waiting, I’ll let Bobby come in. Let me bring Bobby in, let Bobby win the title, and then at the time, it was me, Bobby and Kenny King. I could do the whole angle with, ‘This is our title. We won this title.’ It’s a really cool story because I stepped to the side, put my ego to the side for Bobby to have the title, and that relationship worked exceptionally well. Here we are a decade later, still making money with that tandem.”
-MVP
Nowadays, the pair have become commonplace on Dynamite having signed with All Elite Wrestling in 2024. Partnered with Shelton Benjamin, Bobby Lashley is a former AEW World Tag Team Champion while MVP has sporadically laced up his boots to join them in trios action.
MVP wasn’t able to call himself a world champion during his time with WWE. However, back in September, he opened up on one of the reasons behind the company being reluctant to have him win the World Heavyweight Championship. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on MVP and Bobby Lashley as soon as we hear more.
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