Bobby Lashley Says He's Fighting Outside of Strikeforce This December
by Anton Tabuena on Oct 13, 2010 2:08 AM EDT
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Shortly after his Strikeforce contract has expired, Bobby Lashley has announced that he's fighting again this December:
"I'm so happy to say I will be fighting again December 10 or 11. I will have all the details within the next few days."
Lashley talked more about this to sherdog:
"I have to stay busy after my last fight. This year has been tough with the injuries I've had; plus I got mono. I've started back with my training and there have been a couple of fights come up that I've given a thumbs up to, and I've tentatively got a fight scheduled. It's December 10th or 11th, but I have to wait on saying who it's with. There's two different organizations that I'm talking to. I have to get out there and fight. I asked Strikeforce for a rematch (with Griggs), but I'm not sure if it's in the works."
Scott Coker though, says that since they're still under the 90-day exclusive negotiating period, if the former WWE star wants to fight outside of Strikeforce, he will still have to get their approval first:
"I haven't heard anything about it and we don't have an event [on Dec. 10-11]," said Coker. "Any kind of an announcement on Bobby's part might be a bit premature. Bobby can take a fight in a smaller place or another promotion, but I think he'd need to get our approval first. We do let our fighters under contract fight for other organizations, but we have a lot invested in them and should have the right to approve where and when they fight."
...
"Bobby doesn't have any fights left on his deal, but we're talking with him about getting more fights. We've been talking [since after the Griggs fight]. The discussions have been friendly, but we just have to get everyone on the same page when it comes to value. I think there's a lot of fight left in Bobby. I just think that in this sport, sometimes you have to take a step backward to take two steps forward."
I guess what we could get from this is that a.) Strikeforce is still interested in re-signing Lashley as long as he lowers his asking price, and b.) Lashley still wants to continue fighting regardless. I guess this is a good sign, considering all that talk about him stepping away from MMA and back to pro-wrestling,
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I’m glad Lashley isn’t walking away from MMA after a loss. It always seemed to me that that was here is heart really was since he quit the WWE. He came into the business already really famous, and over time I’ve seen many MMA purists hoping for his utter failure, and others who criticized hm for not challenging tougher opponents even though he already was on a much faster curve than most fighters.
Bobby Lashley is not Dave Baustista, and the comparisons are frankly cringe inducing. They are a world apart in talent, potential, and attitude. I hope he gets his career back on track and proves his haters wrong.
I honestly thought that Lashley was going back to professional wrestling. I was a fan of his when he first came on the MMA scene, but when fights started to get handpicked for him and whatnot after him proving that he could beat the utter bottom of the barrel scrubs (I know Griggs was supposed to be a gimme opponent though), I started to lost interest in him. I get disappointed in him because he does not seem to even try to work any standup against these scrubs/cans when they are the perfect people to get in cage experience to work on standup.
If Lashley actually shows some real dedication by possibly losing muscle for his cardio, not fighting too many of these scrubs/cans after awhile, showing some standup acumen, then I would probably be a fan of his again. His wrestling is good, and he passed to side control against Griggs very quickly after the takedown, so he has shown some potential. He does not know how to pace himself, and he needs more discipline in the cage instead of burning himself out in the first round, but he is still new to MMA, so it is understandable.
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That Lashley fought his fights mostly on the ground really isn’t something people should hold against him. You get stand-up experience in practice, and when your strength is as a wrestler, you use strikes to set up takedowns. Before Griggs, he still had won four of his five fights by first-round stoppage, so he was hardly content to grind out decisions either.
Furthermore, Griggs was an 8-1 fighter who’d won every fight by stoppage, six in the first round. He wasn’t world class but he was hardly bottom-of-the-barrel. That StrikeForce failed to promote Griggs better is their own fault, as it would have been better for everyone involved.
I agree with you that Lashley needs to lose some muscle mass. His cardio is going to be more and more of a liability if his career gets going again and he starts fighting tougher opponents.
I would agree with you if the competition that Lashley fought weren’t utter scrubs outside of Griggs. Using the standup that was learned in practice against this sub par competition, in my opinion, would not be that huge of a risk for him considering who he was fighting, and those are the types of opponents that he should be putting into practice what he learned in the gym. If Lashley wasn’t going to utilize his standup against the bottom-of-the-barrel fighters, then who would he use it against?
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All of his fights have been a huge risk for him and his career to treat like something other than a fight. None of his fights were what would have been considered severe mismatches at the time.
His first fight was against another fighter making his debut. Lashley won in 41 seconds. I don’t see how you could complain about any aspect of that. Was Lashley supposed to toy with him or something? Again, it was his very first fight. I suppose in retrospect Brock Lesnar could have toyed with Min Soo Kim in his first fight too but no one blames him for simply taking him down and murdering him with punches.
His second fight was a very tough three-round fight against journeyman Jason Guida, a veteran who had 36 fights at the time and is better than his sub-.500 record would lead you to believe. Lashley nearly got guillotined in the second round. Should he have treated that fight like a practice session when he damn near got choked out?
His third fight was against Mike Cook, a 7-3 fighter who mocked Lashley and his pro-wrestling background at the weigh-ins. Lashley choked him out in 21 seconds. Maybe Lashley could have chosen to stand for a bit here and practice another aspect of his game like you said, and showed some versatility, but I’m not sure I can blame him for immediately making Cook reap what he sowed instead.
His fourth fight after that was his first against a high-profile opponent in Bob Sapp. Lashley said he took the fight in part because he was sick of people saying he was using his size to bully people. Now Sapp doesn’t have a lot left, and was never a versatile fighter, but he still has some pretty major power in his fists. Would it really have been smart for Lashley to try and trade punches with a strong-as-fuck super-heavyweight with no ground game?
His fifth fight was his first on national television, on CBS no less, and against a well-known opponent. It was a huge opportunity, and if Lashley had a hard time in this fight and was less than dominant, it wouldn’t have been very good for him even if he won. Wes Sims is pretty washed up and was not a huge threat to Lashley, but he is still 6’10" and had a huge reach advantage. Sims could have very easily frustrated Lashley at range if Lashley chose to keep it standing. Instead he took it to the ground and had another first-round stoppage. I really find it hard to fault that game plan.
I just don’t see the same problem here that you do.
by Chromium on Oct 13, 2010 4:38 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
His fifth fight was not on CBS, it aired on Showtime, it was on the undercard of the Strikeforce: Miami show.
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by RagingNoodles on Oct 13, 2010 8:07 AM EDT up reply actions
His third fight was against Mike Cook, a 7-3 fighter who mocked Lashley and his pro-wrestling background at the weigh-ins. Lashley choked him out in 21 seconds.
It was also one of the most blatant works I have seen in the modern era of MMA.
This interests me.
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by Derek Suboticki on Oct 14, 2010 5:20 AM EDT up reply actions
I did not take into consideration how early it is in Lashley’s career that he fought these fighters, and stylistically why wrestling with these fighters would be better. I should have been more clear in saying that I don’t think that Lashley should have stood with these fighters the whole time and not wrestle at all, and seeing his fights, he immediately goes for the takedown. I guess in hindsight that Lashley should have done what he needed to do to win, but I do have to ask, when do you think that Lashley should actually show some standup? Also I have to mention, don’t you think that you may be over-inflating Lashley’s opponents just a little bit? I mean, looking at what you wrote about his opponents, they seem like solid fighters and not the “cans” that everyone else (including myself) and their records is making them out to be.
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I guess I’m using the older definition of “can.” Cans in boxing were handpicked opponents who didn’t pose a remote threat to their competitors and were the closest thing you could get to a pro-wrestling style “squash” match in real combat sports. All of Lashley’s opponents were underdogs, but in each case it wasn’t like he was fighting someone who was ridiculously overmatched just so he could pad his record like you commonly see in boxing.
As for when Lashley should have shown some stand-up, if his next fight is against an easy opponent, that would be a good time. If he’s taking on a dude like Dave Herman though, or even Michael Kita, then he should probably just stick to what he’s best at.
Griggs was bottom of the barrel.
He is in no way a serious opponent. He hadn’t fought in over a year before fighting against Lashely and before that he had a 2yr break in between fights. This was his first fight in SF so they had nothing really to market him on other than them saying he was 8-1.
Next victim: Cain Velasquez
They did not even bother to market him on his record though (all eight wins were in the first round btw). If they had marketed Griggs with the expectation that Lashley would win, it would have made Lashley’s victory seem all the more impressive. And then when Griggs won, he would have already had a tiny bit of momentum to work with, and they could have used that to market Griggs against Daniel Cormier or Lavar Johnson or whoever and that in turn could have better built up the winner of that fight. This is such basic stuff that SF failed to do.
To me, it’s pretty obvious that neither party got anything they wanted out of the original deal:
Strikeforce was hoping to book him for some big name main event style fights (Shane Del Rosario. Brett Rogers, Tim Sylvia, and Andrei Arlovski were supposedly all offered to Bobby) and got nothing to headline a show. Instead they got 2 shitty undercard bouts.
I think it’s now apparent Lashley was not going to take anything even remotely that risky and was intent on building up his record until he was a free agent again. Unfortunately for him, he was stood up against Griggs.
by John Nash on Oct 13, 2010 2:20 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Most people don’t fight top-20 fighters in their first five or six fights. That he wanted to take fights on par with his developing talents is hardly something to be ashamed of. It really wouldn’t have been doing him any favors to put him in against an Andrei Arlovski or Tim Sylvia at this point in his career. It would have been a quasi-freakshow fight designed to boost the other guy. Obviously Lashley wants a good pay day. He has a wife and young child. But if it was only about the money he would be taking the pro-wrestling route right now.
I have no problem with the level of opposition Lashley has faced, but obviously he and Strikeforce had completely different expectations.
I also think Lashley might have been too worried about keeping the pro wrestling door open. I mean, as an undefeated mma fighter he could have probably signed a pretty good pro wrestling contract as a real badass.
by John Nash on Oct 13, 2010 2:36 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I think the problems with lashley are the comparisons to lesnar. He is not lesnar. He is not mid level like cheick kongo. Right now he might be more of a chris tuchsherer (spelling). The problem is he’s a name and people expect more from him because of that. Let him develop before we shit all over him.
by ronrod on Oct 13, 2010 2:22 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Jason Guida, Wes Sims, Chad Griggs, Bob Sapp, Mike Cook and Joshua Franklin.
That is almost the definition of time to develop.
I could be sitting here with just pee stains on my rug.
by Earl Montclair on Oct 13, 2010 3:13 AM EDT up reply actions
my only point was
I don’t think he’s ready or capable with his age to become a champion. He should stay on challengers or fight smaller names to develop. See how he comes back from a loss. Even lesnar lost once and look how well he bounced back. The problem is his paycheck worth the midcard status. Look how many unkowns carwin got before the bigtime.
by ronrod on Oct 13, 2010 3:28 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Look at the first six fighters every UFC Heavyweight has fought, and I’ll guarantee you that 80% of them were a worse line-up. Most of them just weren’t under a microscope that early in their careers.
I was trying to say that......
But you said it better.
by ronrod on Oct 13, 2010 4:14 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Look at the first six fighters every UFC Heavyweight has fought, and I’ll guarantee you that 80% of them were a worse line-up. Most of them just weren’t under a microscope that early in their careers
yeah and most of them were not on the main card and getting what he is paid….. also brock is an exception to your quote
No shit Lesnar is an exception to what I said. Did I fucking imply otherwise?
Furthermore, Lashley did not get paid very well until he signed with StrikeForce. This has a lot to do with why he was wrestling part-time for TNA. A lot of fighters have day-jobs. Jason Brilz is a fire-fighter. Bobby Lashley knows how to fake-wrestle, and had an opportunity to support his family doing it 3 days a month (they film shows every two weeks in Orlando and hold one PPV a month), while being only a few hours drive from American Top Team in Coconut Creek where he could devote the majority of his time to training.
Furthermore, how the fuck does his pay affect his development? He was getting paid more to fight Sims and Griggs because he was something of a draw. He wasn’t getting paid more because he was a top-20 fighter or something. Also, $50,000 is a big payout but hardly a fortune. Lesnar, who you counter-exampled, has gotten considerably more than that in every fight in his career.
Calm down buddy ...
And then God created Saturn... and he liked it, so he put a ring on it.
Twitter me and what not.
The problem is that his level of competition wasn't going up...
He just kept fighting those same low level fighters until one caught him. it wasn’t a thing where you saw how each fight was helping him develop. You weren’t seeing a guy who was working on anything in each fight. He just went out there against low-tier guys over and over
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by Brent Brookhouse on Oct 13, 2010 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions
My issue with Lashley was always that he’d come out and claim that he “wanted to fight the best” and then you’d hear of him turning down the likes of Arlovski, et al. If he’d have come out and said look, I’m still learning the game, I want to put together 7-8 wins before I face any proper contenders, that would’ve been fine. But again, if he’d have wanted to do that, he shouldn’t have signed with Strike Force – he should’ve stayed around the lower scene like Shark Fights, MFC, etc.
I'm not a fan of Lashley at all ...
… but I hate how Griggs won that fight. So many bad things from the standup to the fact that the fight ended on six or seven blows to the back of the head.
And then God created Saturn... and he liked it, so he put a ring on it.
Twitter me and what not.
Lashley would do really well in Japan
He could be the new Bob Sapp.
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