This day in wrestling history came on September 23, 2005 when Bobby Lashley made his WWE debut during a Smackdown tapping in Lubbock, Texas.
As debuts go, Lashley’s was as impressive as anyone’s as he defeated Simon Dean in less than three minutes.
It was the second fastest match on the show ass Chris Benoit submitted Orlando Jones in 50 seconds to retain the United States Championship.
What almost wasn’t
It’s strange when we look back at Lashley’s remarkable career in amateur wrestling, the WWE, and Impact Wrestling to think it almost never happened because of a accident.
We don’t often expect something like a knee injury to occur in a bank, but that’s what happened when Lashley was waiting in line and the bank was robbed.
He spoke about it with Corey Graves on After the Bell, and he said how when he dropped to the floor he injured his knee. It required surgery and ended his Olympic dream.
Turning it around
Kurt Angle opened the doors for him to pursue professional wrestling after he approached Lashley at the Olympic training center, according to prowrestlingstries.com.
He told Angle his goal was making the Olympics, but after hearing Lashley was wrestling for 17 years Angle thought she should be getting paid for all the work he’d been putting in.
Gerald Briscoe then got in touch with Lashley shortly after that and his WWE career started with him heading to OVW to be trained.
He quickly became a powerful mainstay on Smackdown as he continued to learn the ropes and then went to Impact Wrestling where he continued to hone his craft.
It seemed to take MVP coming in to get the WWE to start booking him like the monster he should be, and now, he’s one of the top stars in the WWE.
He’s had an amazing career overall from his amateur days to his recent run as the WWE Champion, and we’re sure there’s plenty more to come for him and we’re excited to see what he’s going to do moving forward.
We often say everything starts with one decision in one moment, and all of this started on this day in wrestling history. It’s been an awesome ride to watch.
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