Yahoo: With fifth tilt on tap, Lashley juggles his wrestling and MMA careers

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01-29-2010 03:45 PM:

The comparisons to fellow pro wrestler Brock Lesnar are never going to stop so Bobby Lashley figures why dump the big checks he's getting from the world of fake fighting? He uses that money he gets from TNA to make sure he can fund his efforts to become a real fighter training in Denver and South Florida. Lashley thinks continuing a career in pro wrestling is far from impeding his progress to grow as a mixed martial artist.

"It's not the same as it was before in WWE, where we were on the road all the time, 250 days a year," Lashley told Cagewriter. "With TNA it's different, they do TV and pay-per-views, and that's all they do. It's five days a month with my dedication toward wrestling and 25 days a month for my [MMA] training."

Lashley's ties to pro wrestling also make him as easy target for prefight trash talk. Wes Sims, his opponent Saturday, is a great smack talker, as was Jason Guida, the second fighter of his career. Guida's prefight hype annoyed Lashley. But his attitude has changed.

"If they want to do it, they can continue to do it. It's not a problem for me. I looked at it a different way [before the Guida fight]. Even know I'm wrestling and fighting, I wanted to make a huge disconnect. I didn't want people, when I get into a fight with somebody, to start cutting promos and acting like this is fun and this is a joke."

Lashley (4-0) learned his lesson and stayed clear of Sims this time around.

"It got into my head that time and I had a bad fight. I wish I could erase that [decision victory] out of the book, but at the same time my coaches were saying we have 15 minutes of tape. We had a lot of stuff to work on and that fight was the best thing [to look back at]."

Sims (22-12) was chosen as Lashley's opponent in his Strikeforce debut after weeks of haggling with the Florida Boxing Commission. The FBC turned down several opponents before settling on the veteran Sims. Lashley didn't allow that drama to affect his training.

"I got taken out of the loop several weeks back. They kept bringing different opponents to me and then we'd look at them and start training for this person." Lashley said his coaches said let them worry about the opponent. "I just wanted to train. I've trained in every aspect, so regardless of who I had, I still had to train the same way."

Sims is 6-foot-10 to Lashley's 6-3 frame.

"It's a little bit different ... tall guy, he throws some knees in there from time to time. [He's got the] longer reach. [But] in the grand scheme of things it's the same gameplan. Go out and stay agressive and take him out."

In the end, Sims' tall frame is a good target for Lashley, who is primarily still a takedown specialist.



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Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.
 

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