Dana White Offered Bobby Lashley Very Small UFC Contract

Bobby Lashley won the WWE Championship after beating The Miz on Monday Night RAW back in March last year. Since then, he was booked as a very dominant force and had Vince McMahon’s seal of approval. Lashley then lost that title to Big E in a huge moment that fans will always remember.

He is also one of the most legitimate athletes to have competed in the world of both MMA and pro wrestling. Lashley has a great record in the MMA world, especially in Strikeforce and Bellator. However, he never competed in the UFC during his MMA career.

While speaking on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Bobby Lashley revealed that UFC President Dana White offered him a very small contract to join the MMA promotion. By then, Lashley was already making his return to professional wrestling, so it never happened.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I know that Dan [Lambert] had talked with Dana at one time and Dana he was fair with it, he said, ‘You know we can’t offer him a huge contract, but we will give him something that he can get his foot in the door and kind of prove himself.’ That’s all I knew and then when I talked with Dan about it — Dan’s a huge pro wrestling fan — Dan was like, ‘They want you to sign everything. There’s no more pro wrestling. Are you ready to shut the doors on pro wrestling?’ I was like, ‘Golly.’ You can’t offer me a contract and say, ‘Yeah we bring him in, but he needs to shut all of that down and get small money.’ Because the wrestling is something that I knew that I could really make some good money on long term.

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So I couldn’t take a small contract to prove myself where I had pro wrestling where I’d already proven myself and that was always my money bag that I could always go back to. So I really couldn’t do it. Everything was left up in the air for me with Coker and I wish I could have done that with Dana, but I understand that you can’t do that in the UFC. He’s not gonna let anybody have that part-time, do-whatever-you-want kind of contract and that’s what I needed and that’s what he wasn’t willing to give.”

Bobby Lashley recently claimed that he is a better MMA fighter than Brock Lesnar as well. The Almighty is also set to defend his newly-won WWE Championship at the Elimination Chamber Premium Live Event in Saudi Arabia on February 19th. We will have to wait and see how the match will turn out to be.

h/t MMA Fighting