The WWE departure of Bobby Lashley and companion MVP appears to be complete. Will the debut for competitor AEW follow next week?
Two-time WWE Champion Bobby Lashley appears to be officially a free agent.
As fans noted on Friday, the wrestling market leader has banned the 48-year-old from the roster page on their official homepage – moving him to the Alumni section, the listing of former stars. The same move was made with MVP, Lashley’s former manager.
MVP had previously confirmed that he would be leaving WWE after his contract expired – Lashley didn’t say it, but also very much gave the impression in a recent podcast interview.
The general expectation is that Lashley and MVP will join rival AEW, possibly at the mega-show All In at London’s Wembley Stadium the Sunday after next. A few weeks ago, several media outlets reported that the two were looking to revive their old group The Hurt Business outside of WWE
Bobby Lashley apparently leaves WWE after six years
The 48-year-old Lashley – who grew up partly in Germany – first came to prominence in WWE in 2005, with his most famous match coming at WrestleMania 2007 when he defeated Umaga, who was brought in by ex-WWE boss Vince McMahon, in the “Battle of the Billionaires” with future US President Donald Trump in his corner.
After an intermittent ten-year hiatus, he returned at WrestleMania 2018. He then finally established himself as a main-event star, holding the WWE Title twice. Despite his advanced age, Lashley is in top shape and should be worth a lot of money to AEW due to his star level. Plans for a Hurt Business reunion – a central pillar of WWE programming a few years ago – should not be unattractive to AEW either.
Lashley and MVP have repeatedly emphasized in interviews how much they cared about the real-life alliance. According to the Observer, the two also want to bring Shelton Benjamin back on board, a free agent since his WWE release last September. As of now, Cedric Alexander, who is still tied to WWE, is not available
The Hurt business group was formed in 2020 from an alliance between Lashley and MVP, which ended when MVP turned on Lashley in 2022 and became manager of 6-foot-2 giant Omos instead – but Omos and MVP have hardly been used by WWE for some time now.
“Not much of a connection” to Triple H
Lashley has also not competed in a TV match since the SmackDown edition after WrestleMania in April – as he himself has since explained, an injury was the reason.
In an interview with The Laboratory, Lashley revealed that he had suffered an injury during WWE’s tour of France at the beginning of May that would have required surgery: he had originally planned a six-month break, but would be fit again shortly.
In the interview, Lashley also criticized WWE ruler “Triple H” Paul Levesque: He had not built the same good relationship with the latter as he had previously with league founder Vince McMahon: He had “not really had much of a connection” with Levesque. Hunter has his people. I tried, but we didn’t really work together enough to really be familiar with each other.”
Former MMA fighter Lashley also spoke in the interview about other projects outside of wrestling that he has in mind – he would like to win another world title in jiu-jitsu, and there are also negotiations about a boxing match in Las Vegas.
