Bobby Lashley: Dan Lambert told me Tony Khan is a genuine person
Before signing with AEW, Bobby Lashley had a discussion with Dan Lambert about the pros and cons of working for the promotion.
Lambert, the founder of MMA gym American Top Team, is a huge pro wrestling fan who has appeared as a manager in AEW, TNA, and MLW. He played a heel, old-school wrestling loyalist in AEW while managing a faction that included Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky. Lambert is also friends with Lashley. He managed Lashley in MMA and appeared with him in TNA.
A new episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet was uploaded on Thursday with Lashley appearing as the guest. Lashley said that, during free agency, he spoke with Lambert about AEW. Lambert told Lashley that Tony Khan is a genuine person.
“So I have a good friend that was working with AEW before — Dan Lambert. He was American Top Team. He was in AEW for a while, living out his fantasy. Dan’s one of my favorite people in this world. He helped manage me through fighting and everything like that. He’s always been just a great friend, first and foremost,” Lashley said.
“And I talked to Dan, and we kind of discussed different options. And I asked him about Tony, because I didn’t know, you don’t know anything about Tony if you don’t know him. So I was like, ‘Oh, what about this Tony guy?’ And a lot of things that he told me about him, I was just like, ‘I can respect that.’ He said, ‘He’s got kind of like a little personality like you, in a sense, where he goes out of his way to be nice to people he really likes. He’s a genuine person.’ He told me pros and cons, and I was like, ‘Man, I’d love to be able to meet him.’ But at this time, I was talking to MVP and I was talking to Shelton [Benjamin], and we were like, ‘Let’s run this back. Let’s run the group back. Let’s do it. We have that option. We’re all out at this time. So let’s see if we can go and do this the right way.'”
Lashley debuted for AEW in October, reuniting with MVP and Benjamin as The Hurt Syndicate. He picked up a victory over Swerve Strickland last month at AEW’s Full Gear pay-per-view.