Bobby Lashley Has a Long Road Ahead

If you think it’s easy for even a legitimately gifted athlete to transition from professional wrestling into mixed martial arts, just ask Brock Lesnar his opinion.  If Lesnar had come straight into MMA from amateur wrestling, pro football, or any other “real sports” background, he’d be heralded as a tremendously gifted athlete and genetic freak that has a ton of potential…which he is.  Instead, he’s only gained respect from a portion of the MMA world, while the rest has regarded him with suspicion, just because he spent a couple of years pretending to beat people up.

So that’s where Lashley finds himself; only he hasn’t had anywhere near the opportunities that Lesnar had.  Lesnar had exactly one professional fight (against a tomato can in a K-1 event in the U.S.) before entering the UFC, and three fights total before getting a title shot against one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, Randy Couture.  Meanwhile, Lashley has fought in the Maximum Fighting Championships, Mixed Fighting Alliance, and best of all, a boxing/MMA mashup promoted by Roy Jones, Jr. himself.  Lashley hasn’t exactly taken the fast road to success.

Even if he had wanted to, could he have?  The UFC has taken such flack for their handling of Lesnar that it’s unlikely that they would rush out and sign another former WWE star, regardless of his raw talent.  This is particularly true when considering that Lashley was never quite as popular as Lesnar, and wrestled as interest in the pro wrestling business itself was waning a bit from where it used to be.  In other words, there’s not enough upside to promoting Lashley and attempting to sell pay-per-views based on his WWE background.

Still, it’s good to see that Lashley is taking his ascent to the big show (and mark my words, that’s where he’ll end up) with a deliberate approach.  He’s publicly stated that he wants to get a lot of experience before even attempting to step foot in the UFC octagon, and he has been fighting very often recently to accelerate that process and build up a respectable record.  When he faces Bob Sapp here soon, he’ll have fought four times since his professional MMA debut in December of 2008, just seven months ago.

Critics like to point out that the level of competition that Lashley is facing is not exactly elite, and Sapp is no exception to that, although he has quite a bit of experience and over seventy pounds of size on Lashley, who is a huge human being himself.  However, as Lashley himself knows, this is a smart approach to take.  Lesnar is fortunate that he’s 3-1 after facing two former world champs and a former top ten heavyweight in three of his four fights.  Sure, a lot of that is due to his own talent, but the fact remains that he’s not exactly protecting his own best interests by learning on the job like he has.

Lashley, on the other hand, is amassing a nice record and steadily stepping up the level of competition he faces, all while he works on his skills and gets used to the sport itself.  This is a much smarter approach, though, like Lesnar, he probably doesn’t want to take too long to climb up the ladder, as he will be 33 in July (Lesnar will be 32 then). 

Lashley faces a lot of challenges as he works his way up to the top promotion in the world, and possibly even a future showdown against his former colleague.  Not only will Lashley have to continue beating opponents that have fought in the sport for much longer than him, but he will have to fight the public perception that he has no business in the sport or is getting opportunities simply for his professional wrestling background. 

Luckily for Lashley, there’s a simple way to take care of all of these challenges at the same time: keep winning.

by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Brock Lesnar, Randy Couture, UFC