WWE Raw: Bobby Lashley’s Title Win is the Right Decision

WWE Raw gave us several exciting moments, but perhaps the most special was seeing Bobby Lashley capture the WWE Intercontinental Championship for the first time in his career. Despite a rocky start since returning to WWE, it’s a huge moment for “The All Mighty” Bobby Lashley.

Bobby Lashley made his triumphant return at WWE Raw the night after WrestleMania 34. With the “Raw after Mania” buzz already hitting the crowd, the former MMA and Impact Wrestling star was ready to come back to WWE with a bang.

Unfortunately, that bang just wasn’t what some people may have been hoping for. Despite criticism throughout his career, Bobby Lashley is now a two decade veteran of the ring who has won championship gold just about everywhere he’s been.

Contrary to WWE‘s shaky booking decisions since his return, Bobby Lashley‘s history and skill set shows him to be plenty capable of carrying the Intercontinental Championship.

Bobby Lashley initially debuted in WWE all the way back in 2005 and went on a short undefeated streak after arriving. He also managed to capture the United States Championship from JBL, but it was WWE’s revival of ECW that saw the biggest break of Lashley’s career at the time.

At the infamous December to Dismember pay-per-view event in December of 2006, Lashley competed in an “Extreme Elimination Chamber” for the ECW Championship. Many fans wanted a rising star by the name of CM Punk to leave as champion.

Even CM Punk expressed disapproval of the decision in his WWE documentary released years later. There has also been talk by ECW’s Paul Heyman that he wanted the title on CM Punk at the time, but ultimately Vince McMahon wanted to go with Lashley.

Since the boss always gets what he wants, Bobby Lashley defeated CM Punk, Hardcore Holly, Rob Van Dam, Test, and then-champion Big Show to become the ECW Champion. It was meant to be Lashley’s crowning moment, but the events surrounding it led to the departure of Heyman and several ECW legends from WWE.

Between the dismal reception that December to Dismember received and the controversial rise of CM Punk in later years, Lashley’s reign as ECW Champion isn’t looked back on fondly by most fans. However, there’s one unforgettable series of events from it that took on an all new meaning.

While he was ECW Champion, Bobby Lashley found himself embroiled in an unlikely WrestleMania-rivalry between Vince McMahon and Donald Trump. This was an entire decade before Donald Trump became President of the United States, and Vince McMahon saw money to be made.

At WrestleMania 23, there was to be a “Battle of the Billionaires” with both McMahon and Trump selecting representatives to fight on their behalf at the event. McMahon chose Umaga, and Trump chose ECW Champion Bobby Lashley. To raise the stakes, it was later made a “Hair vs. Hair Match” where the losing billionaire would have his head shaved.

Not only did Bobby Lashley pick up a big win by defeating Umaga at WrestleMania 23 on behalf of Donald Trump, but he received yet another nod of approval by being in such a huge match. Even if the fans were reluctant to support him, he’d won over the boss.

I spoke to Bobby Lashley back in 2017 when he was still with Impact Wrestling, and he had this to say about working with Donald Trump at WrestleMania 23:

"It’s great. I never knew what the magnitude of that match was gonna be. You get put in a role like that [and] everybody wants to see where [it’s] gonna go, and I knew that. At the time, he was already huge, and he made that match and that whole experience. He made that, and he helped us out tremendously.Of course we had a great match with great players like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, everybody was involved and everybody did their job. And that was one thing everybody thought that Trump was going to come in and start pushing his weight around. And that’s not what he did.He came in and said, “how can I make this better? How can I help? What can I do?” And that’s what he said every time when he came in. And they just gave him different roles, and man he knocked it out of the park. Everybody played their part and that’s why it was successful."

It’s that final line that perhaps best represents Bobby Lashley’s first run in WWE. “Everybody played their part, and that’s why it was successful.” In reality things weren’t always so successful for Lashley, but he always played his part until WWE wouldn’t let him.

After suffering an injury in mid-2007, Bobby Lashley was released from his contract following a hiatus that bled into early 2008. While Lashley had played his part, he hadn’t managed to embrace his character and stand out in a way that would have warranted WWE keeping him.

After being release, Lashley found a new home in the world of MMA, starting a five-fight undefeated streak that lasted from 2008 to 2010. Despite an impressive MMA career ending with a 15-2 record and stints in Strikeforce and Bellator, Lashley came up short of joining UFC or winning a prestigious championship.

During the latter part of his MMA career, Bobby Lashley also competed in Impact Wrestling. Joining rarefied air as a dual-sport competitor who was active in both at the same time, Bobby Lashley refined all of his wrestling skills while with Impact. His in-ring ability, storytelling, and mic work all continued to improve.

All of this led to a truly dominant time in Impact Wrestling, during which Lashley became X-Division Champion, King of the Mountain Champion, and a 4-time TNA Heavyweight Champion. Lashley became a cornerstone of Impact Wrestling until his release from the company in January of 2018.

Since returning to WWE in April of last year, Bobby Lashley has struggled to stand out. It’s not an uncommon problem on an overly saturated roster, but still disappointing considering WWE’s willingness to put Lashley right back on the main roster rather than putting him through NXT first.

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Lashley was initially being used as a generic babyface, playing up his physique and military background. Unsurprisingly, the bland attempt to get fans to cheer him fell flat. Things only started to pick up after Lashley demolished Kevin Owens and put the former Universal Champion on the shelf.

This had finally turned Lashley into the despised heel he’d proven himself capable of being in Impact Wrestling, and WWE made the brilliant choice of pairing him with 205 Live’s Lio Rush. While just barely more than half Lashley’s age, Rush is truly gifted with a microphone.

“The Man of the Hour” nestled into a role as Lashley’s hype man and manager, helping draw more and more disdain from the crowds. The cockier these two got, the more the fans hated Lashley, and the more they wanted to see him lose. It was the perfect storm.

This perfect storm is exactly why WWE made the perfect decision to have Bobby Lashley capture the Intercontinental Championship last night on Raw. The heated rivalry between Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins functions just as well without the title, and Lashley has proven himself with a huge win over two of WWE’s most respected talents.

On top of that, it was impossible to miss the genuine joy on the face of Bobby Lashley when he won the championship. While he’s been US Champion and ECW Champion, those accomplishments happened over a decade ago.

He’s returned to an entirely different WWE as an entirely different competitor, and proven he belongs and can thrive as “The All Mighty” Bobby Lashley. Not only that, but it’s worth noting that Lashley is the first black man to win a main roster singles championship in WWE since 2013.

While we’ve seen teams like The New Day excel, WWE has a disappointing tendency to delegate black superstars to characters that don’t have the same chance to shine as a singles star. As our own David Joseph put it last week, “Historically, wrestlers of color are stuck in a team, a dance gimmick, or something that depicts them as comedy characters who aren’t threats to win titles.”

If you’re trying to think of a tag team that checks all those boxes, look no further than The New Day. Despite being given a pretty over the top tag team gimmick, the three of them have excelled as a team and found a way to embrace their own personalities while connecting to fans.

Interestingly, the last two black men to win singles titles on the main roster were Kofi Kingston and Big E. Kofi captured the US Championship in April of 2013, and Big E captured the Intercontinental Championship in November of 2013. That’s nearly six years without seeing a black man hold one of WWE’s important singles championships, and it’s far too long.

Bobby Lashley has continued to prove himself worthy since returning to WWE, and capturing the title last night on Raw is one more step in the right direction for WWE and for Lashley. Only time will tell if Lashley’s championship reign lives up to its potential, but that potential may be truly limitless.