wrestling / Columns

Bobby Lashley’s Sisters Don’t Matter

May 24, 2018 | Posted by Steve Cook
Bobby Lashley Raw 52118 Image Credit: WWE

Occasionally, something will appear on a pro wrestling show that’s so ridiculous & has so little redeeming value that you have to wonder how it slipped through the cracks. This happened on a weekly basis back when Vince Russo was writing for one of the major companies. It’s slightly less common now, so when something is bad, it really stands out.

Take this week’s segment on Raw with Sami Zayn trying to expose Bobby Lashley as a liar. Seriously, please take it. I sure didn’t want it.

In case you’re wondering why Lashley & Zayn have beef, here’s what happened. Two weeks ago, Lashley did one of those backstage interviews designed to make a wrestler seem likeable. They tell stories about their background that the fans can relate to. Lashley used his to talk about his older sisters bullying him when he was a kid.

It’s an interesting strategy. Take a monster like Bobby Lashley & humanize him by having him talk about how his older sisters motivated him to become a badass. There are a number of ways to build positively off of it & make Bobby Lashley more compelling as a character. In his first WWE stint, he was hard hitting & soft spoken, but we didn’t know much more. Stories like this let us know what made Lashley the man he is today. It’s useful in that vein.

Since this is pro wrestling, somebody can start a feud over it. That somebody, in this case, is Sami Zayn. You might be wondering why Sami would want to start a feud with Bobby, considering that Sami is half Bobby’s size and isn’t exactly known for his power game, nor for his striking. I don’t have a really good answer for this. Sami seems like an intelligent man most of the time.

Sami really, really tried. He really is quite good at being annoying. It seems natural to him. But sometimes you get material that isn’t going to work no matter what you do. Sometimes you get co-actors that don’t exactly thrive in their roles. Bobby coming out didn’t exactly make things better. I’m not sure what they were going for with Bobby’s reaction, but I don’t think they succeeded.

So bad on so many levels. It just isn’t in Lashley’s wheelhouse. I bet Braun Strowman could have pulled it off, but he’s the only one.

We can talk about how bad this segment was until we’re blue in the face. There’s nothing positive that can be said about any of it, other than Sami & Bobby will probably wrestle for ten minutes at a PPV & it should be a solid match. Will it make up for having to sit through ten minutes of the Lashley sisters? Probably not. We’ll forget that match by the end of the seven hour event it appears on. We’ll remember the Lashley sisters in connection with Lashley & Zayn the same way we remember “This Is Your Life, Bayley” & forget whatever match it led to with Bayley & Alexa Bliss.

The thing is…it doesn’t matter.

As wrestling fans, we’re conditioned to sit through things like this. For whatever reason, we have an addiction to this product that we can’t shake. People my age have stuck with WWE through Mae Young’s Hand, Katie Vick, Hot Lesbian Action & all kinds of garbage segments. Not to mention all the pushes given to wrestlers we’re not all that high on.

Some accept it. Vince McMahon is their one true Savior & has never done anything wrong. The matches are awesome & the angles are tremendous. The wrestlers Vince favors are the best. Everything WWE produces is gold, and they’ll hear no different. To express any dissent towards anything WWE puts on television is an act of treason. You should shut up and enjoy everything you see.

Let’s be honest, they’ve never had more reason to feel this way than this week. WWE just made a deal to air SmackDown Live on Fox for over a billion dollars. I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised when I read the news. But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes for Fox. The number one reason in my eyes: the WWE Universe. Or WWE fans or whatever you want to call them.

WWE has an amazingly loyal audience. Even people like me that have the temerity & unmitigated gall to complain about something like Bobby Lashley’s sisters keep coming back. The ratings might not pop like they did back in the day, but they’re still among the best on cable television. They’ll be fine for Fox’s Friday night standards.

Network television shows had a rough season. It’s easier to name the shows that didn’t get canceled than the ones that did. It seems like a new one is biting the dust with every passing day. It’s tough for shows to capture an audience. We have a ton of options. If you don’t grab our attention right away, you’re gone.

WWE doesn’t have to worry about that. They have their audience locked up. We’re watching even if Bobby Lashley’s sister has a mustache. It gives them a tremendous amount of leeway. It gives broadcasters a great amount of confidence in the company.

The song remains the same. Whether we like what we watch or not, we’re coming back. Heck, what are the odds they’ll produce something this bad next week? Not great. We don’t have to worry about it for at least a few months, I’d say. Bobby doesn’t have any brothers, right? As long as Sami doesn’t get Bobby’s parents on the show, we should be fine.

article topics :

Bobby Lashley, WWE, Steve Cook