April 26, 2024

Bobby Lashley, King Mo Lawal and Stephan Bonnar will be featured in wrestling PPV event

A match that will feature two MMA fighters and a UFC Hall of Famer, as Bobby Lashley teams with King Mo Lawal against Stephan Bonnar & Moose (former NFL offensive lineman Quinn Ojinnaka), will be on a pro wrestling pay-per-view show on Nov. 5.

Global Force Wrestling, the new name for the promotion formerly known as TNA (Total Nonstop Action), is presenting what has been its traditionally biggest event of the year, and is doing an angle involving American Top Team.

On the promotion’s television show this past Thursday, Dan Lambert, the owner of ATT, and a longtime pro wrestling fan and memorabilia collector, was heavily focused on, as he arrived as a celebrity guest with a number of team members, including coach Marcus “Conan” Silveira, and UFC fighters Gleison Tibau and Colby Covington. They were shown in the front row during a match with Lashley. After that match, Covington was shown in an angle choking out referee Brian Hebner, who had ruled Lashley had lost his match.

The company has been taping all of its television through the end of October for its show, Impact Wrestling, on Pop TV, over this past week. One of the major storylines has been that Lambert wants Lashley to give up on pro wrestling to concentrate on MMA.

In an angle taped on Monday, a confrontation takes place between ATT members and Moose, which ends up with Bonnar involved, and leads to the announcement of the tag team match for the pay-per-view. The episode is expected to air some time in October.

Lashley, who has fought for Bellator since 2014, compiling a 5-0 record as a heavyweight, now has a 15-2 MMA record but he’s also 41 years old. He’s also had a long pro wrestling career which includes being in the biggest drawing match of the only pro wrestling pay-per-view in history to hit 1.25 million buys, the 2007 WrestleMania where he represented future President Donald Trump in the battle of the billionaires hair vs. hair match against the late Umaga, who represented WWE owner Vince McMahon. He’s been one of TNA and now GFW’s biggest stars, including being a four-time champion, since returning to the company in 2014. He was a three-time NAIA national champion as a college wrestler.

Lawal, a pro wrestling fan since childhood, worked for the company in the past when it was known as TNA. He’s 21-6 with one no-contest in MMA after an amateur wrestling career that included winning national freestyle championships in 2005, 2006 and 2008. He’s currently one of Bellator’s top names.

Bonnar, a retired UFC star best known for his landmark 2005 fight with Forrest Griffin which put him in the company’s Hall of Fame, debuted as a pro wrestler this past week in New York against another former UFC fighter Matt Riddle.

TNA changed its name to GFW earlier this year after an ownership change, with Dixie Carter, who had owned the company since 2002, selling after huge financial losses, to Anthem Entertainment, the Toronto-based parent company of The Fight Network. Impact wrestling was the second-highest rated programming on the station behind only UFC events.

About Author