Lashley’s return to the WWE earlier this year excited many fans who wanted to see the dominant badass come home and showcase his talents to the WWE universe. During Lashley’s time away from the WWE, he worked the independent scene - along with MMA - and as noted previously, Impact Wrestling.
The former Impact World Heavyweight champion was on The Big J Show and explained why he left WWE in 2008 and what brought him back in 2018:
"I wanted to work with some of the people that I probably would have never had the opportunity to work with before," Lashley said, explaining why he left WWE for the indies. He also said that various wrestlers view the indies as
"paying your dues" in the wrestling business. Since Lashley went straight from amateur wrestling to the WWE, he wanted to respect the business by working the indie scene at some point in his career.
Now that he's back in WWE, Lashley says he's most looking forward to having a feud with the one-and-only WWE champion, AJ Styles:
"No, not while I was in TNA," Lashley responded when asked if he worked with Styles before.
"He was going out while I was coming in and he was involved with these other things. The thing with AJ is…a crazed good guy needs a crazed bad guy. When I flip that switch and you see that bad side of me like I had in TNA, I believe I'm a perfect person to AJ's good."