Why AEW's Bobby Lashley Doesn't Like Talking About The Company's Black Champions
Bobby Lashley defeated Swerve Strickland in his first AEW pay-per-view match this past Saturday at Full Gear. The Hurt Syndicate is quickly becoming one of the largest threats on the AEW roster and Lashley could be in line to challenge for the AEW World Championship sometime in the near future. However, after his victory over Strickland, Lashley made it known at the AEW Full Gear Post Show Media Scrum, how he'd like African American champions in professional wrestling to be acknowledged going forward after being asked if he was impressed with arriving in a company that has featured many Black champions.
"I don't like that. I don't like that Black champion, it's just a champion," Lashley said. "See we've normalized this already and that's what I want to do with it. Winning a title as a Black champion and there's other Black champions here. We can kind of erase that word now, we could just say champion. It could be a Black champion, it could be an Asian champion, it could be a Latin champion, it could be any champion. So we've already normalized that, so we can kind of erase that Black champion and it's just champion now."
It has yet to be determined who Lashley will go after next or if he will re-enter battle with Strickland, however, his Hurt Syndicate faction mate Shelton Benjamin has been scheduled to compete in this years Continental Classic and will have his first match this Wednesday against Mark Briscoe on "AEW Dynamite."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "AEW" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.