Bobby Lashley, a WWE superstar, has explained why he turned down a UFC offer.
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WWE Champion Bobby Lashley revealed why he turned down the option to sign with Dana White’s UFC promotion.
Lashley has a 15-2 professional MMA record, including a 5-0 victory run in Bellator. When he was with Dan Lambert’s American Top Team, he was offered a UFC spot.
But the move never came to fruition, and he recently explained why.
“I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I know that Dan had talked with Dana [White] at one time and Dana, he was fair with it, he said, “You know we can’t offer him a huge contract, but we will give him something that he can get his foot in the door and kind of prove himself,”‘ he told The MMA Hour.
‘That’s all I knew and then when I talked with Dan about it – Dan’s a huge pro wrestling fan – Dan was like, “They want you to sign everything. There’s no more pro wrestling. Are you ready to shut the doors on pro wrestling?”
‘I was like, “Golly”. You can’t offer me a contract and say, “Yeah we bring him in, but he needs to shut all of that down and get small money.”
“Because the wrestling is something that I knew that I could really make some good money on long term.’
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Lashley didn’t want to miss out on a pro wrestling payday for much less money. And he knew his idea of a “part-time” agreement wouldn’t have worked for Dana.
‘So I couldn’t take a small contract to prove myself where I had pro wrestling, where I’d already proven myself and that was always my money bag that I could always go back to. So I really couldn’t do it,’ he explained.
‘Everything was left up in the air for me with [Scott] Coker and I wish I could have done that with Dana, but I understand that you can’t do that in the UFC.
‘He’s not gonna let anybody have that part-time, do-whatever-you-want kind of contract. That’s what I needed and that’s what he wasn’t willing to give.’
The All-Mighty has defeated luminaries such as Goldberg and Brock Lesnar in the last year, the latter during the Royal Rumble last month to win the WWE Championship.
