Bobby Lashley On How He Dealt With the Rusev & Lana Storyline, Getting Advice From Kurt Angle

Bobby Lashley was part of one of the most hated WWE storylines of recent memory in his relationship with Lana and feud with Rusev, and Lashley discussed how he dealt with it on After the Bell. Lashley ended up being the other man that broke Rusev and Lana up on WWE TV and then was married on-screen to Lana for a while, before he eventually got past that storyline and got into The Hurt Business. Speaking with Corey Graves, Lashley discussed the reason for some of the storyline as he saw it and what advice Kurt Angle gave him about it; you can check out the highlights and full audio below:

On how he dealt with the Lana/Rusev storyline: “You saw me; a lot of times I’d walk into a locker room and I would just sit down, and just kind of look at you. You’d look at me and nod your head and just kind of chuckle … I mean, that’s how it was a lot of times. But for me, I had to figure out the why. A lot of times, people don’t want to know the why. And I think part of the why for me was, when I came back — here’s a couple things. One, they were like, ‘Well, we want people to hate you.’ That’s a good way. [laughs]

“But two also, I think it’s just getting me to loosen up a little bit. I’ve trained so long with wrestling. And with wrestling I’ve trained under anyone from Dan Gable, to my high school coach, and my college coach. And it was always, ‘Shut up and train.’ So I was always a shut up and train kind of person. I busted my ass and let what you do speak for you, and that’s how I was always growing up. I just like — I was a workhorse, and I was always a quiet person. I think when coming back, they’re like, ‘We need to embarrass him enough to break out of his shell’. And, I mean, singing, beating up my sisters… [laughs].”

On if he got advice from Kurt Angle on the storyline: “Kurt offered some kind of advice, but it wasn’t advice of what people would think, like, ‘Oh no, you need to go and tell them that you’re not going to do this.’ He was just like, ‘Just have fun with it.’ And I was like, ‘Bro, do you see what I’m doing today?'”

“And It was challenging at the time; I’m not gonna lie to you. When I first started, I started in the summer time. My kids weren’t at school, so my kids were going to the house shows almost every weekend. So it was an adjustment for me. When I started this storyline, my kids didn’t even watch the show. They couldn’t watch the show. It was just the time for me to kind of pay my dues. But at the same time, what I thought about, also, I said, ‘You know what?’ In my first run, I left early. And I know that I had a lot of possibilities and I know that they had a lot of plans for me on my first run, but I left early. So, I said, ‘Maybe this is a way of paying dues’. And it’s not like I haven’t paid dues before. It’s not just a thing to sell out and do whatever. It’s like, ‘I’m going to pay my dues and I’m going to show you that I’m here.'”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE’s After the Bell with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.