WWE CHAMPION Bobby Lashley has revealed why he rejected an offer to join Dana White’s UFC.
The 45-year-old star won the title for a second time after beating former UFC heavyweight king Brock Lesnar at last week’s Royal Rumble.
Lashley shot to stardom with WWE in the early 2000s but left Vince McMahon’s company in 2008 before making his big return a decade later.
During that period away, as well as wrestling for other promotions, he also embarked on a career inside the MMA cage with the likes of Strikeforce and Bellator, amassing an impressive 15-2 record.
And during an appearance on Speaking on The MMA Hour, the Monday Night Raw powerhouse has revealed how he once had the opportunity to sign for UFC while with Dan Lambert’s American Top Team.
The Almighty said: “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’.
“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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“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.”
Lashley embarked on a 5-0 streak in Bellator but he has not competed for them since 2016.
He added: “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 and that’s what I needed and that’s what he wasn’t willing to give.”
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