Eric Bischoff On Why Bobby Lashley Was Released From TNA During First Run With The Company

Bobby Lashley has achieved major success with WWE over the last few years, but he originally parted ways with the company in 2008 when he was released from his contract. Lashley went on to debut with TNA in 2009, but his run with the company didn’t last long as he was released in 2010.

Eric Bischoff recently reflected on Bobby Lashley’s first TNA run on his 83 Weeks podcast, and he indicated that Lashley was released because his girlfriend at the time Kristal Marshall was not easy to work with.

“Bobby was like working with butter, he was so easy. I’m talking about backstage. Just classy, easy, professional. Kristal was not. She was a little hard to deal with. She kinda ran that show, so that created a little bit of tension as time went on. She got in the way of Bobby’s career, not that it hurt Bobby at all. Obviously TNA was not gonna be where Bobby was gonna end up.”

“I guess I could have said, ‘Bobby, the process is just too cumbersome with your beautiful wife [girlfriend] here involved, and we’ve made the decision that you’d be better off somewhere else.’ I could have, and probably should have, done that, but I didn’t. I was just pretty straightforward with, ‘We’re gonna let you go.'”

Even though Bobby Lashley’s first run with TNA didn’t go so well he returned to the company in 2014 and quickly became one of the top stars. During his second run with TNA, Bobby Lashley managed to become a 4 time TNA World Champion and he also captured the TNA King of the Mountain Championship and X-Division Championship. He parted ways with TNA in 2018 and returned to WWE shortly after.

H/T Sportskeeda