Bobby Lashley currently serves as the mentor and muscle behind The Street Profits on WWE SmackDown. Setting a good example for the young tag team, he dispatched The Brawling Brutes’ Butch this past Friday night in under ten minutes. At a time when Lashley is arguably doing his best work, he is having to compete for the spotlight with some of the company’s top stars. One big name who has returned to the WWE fold recently and is taking up a lot of the spotlight is CM Punk.
In an interview with WrestlingNewsCo., Lashley was asked how he felt about Punk returning to WWE.
“I really don’t know, to be honest with you,” he mused. “I was actually leaving around the time when Punk was really starting to pick up a little steam. And then he was there, but he really didn’t do anything at that time. I know he had a big impact in WWE at the time, in his time there. I spoke with some of the guys that know him, got mixed feelings. Some people were very against it. Some people were, ‘Uh, you know, whatever.’
“But you know what? It’s a land of opportunity. So, if he comes back and he helps out the show, that’s the business side of it. I don’t know, I don’t really know Punk too personally, and when I was fighting, he went to UFC. I put my money on him. So he does owe me a little bit of money.”
Lashley laughed about Punk’s two UFC losses, but the former Bellator fighter reiterated that he thought Punk was capable of picking up a victory in the octagon.
“I hope the business is about this as well as everyone else,” he continued. “I think for integrity purposes, I understand he has a big name, he’s coming back, and he’s doing he’s going to do some big numbers, but I hope they make him kind of work for some of the stuff. I hope he’s not one of the people that, ‘Okay, comes back, we’re gonna win the Rumble. We’re gonna do this; we’re going to do that.’
“I hope they give them an opportunity to kind of prove his loyalty to the business and some of the people in there just to let everybody know, some of the naysayers, some of the people that aren’t too happy about him being there. I hope he has his opportunity to work his way back up to the top and not just given everything because maybe he negotiated a good contract that allowed him to do that.”
The only notable WWE match that Haus of Wrestling could find, including Lashley and Punk, was the Extreme Elimination Chamber match from the infamous ECW December To Dismember 2006 PPV. Lashley won and became the ECW World Champion.
If you use any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to Haus of Wrestling and credit WrestlingNewsCo.