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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Bobby Lashley was supposed to face James Thompson this Friday night at Bellator 138, a fight he wanted in order to avenge a loss from several years back. Unfortunately, Thompson dropped out due to injury, the second time this year that's happened with the matchup.
However, Lashley's not buying the injury story, and says he's still looking for that rematch.
"I know he's not hurt," Lashley said in an interview with Submission Radio. "I know he's not hurt. I don't know what his case is, I don't know what the situation is, but I know he can go out there and he can take the fight. So hopefully after this fight I'm gonna try to call him out right away. If this fight goes the way I plan for it to go, I'm gonna call him out right away and say 'hey, no disrespect, but I want you to get your ass out here and fight.'"
Lashley's now facing a late replacement in Dan Charles on Friday's card from St. Louis, but he's not concerned about the additional pressure to win against a lesser known opponent, and expects to finish the fight on the ground.
"Everything is kind of a concern. You know, I'm not really worried about it to the point where 'oh I'm worried about the guy,'" he said of fighting Charles. "Everything is going to be a concern because it's a fight. And when you're a heavyweight, 200 plus pounds, slinging leather, anything can happen. So I'm gonna be cautious out there of course, but I just had such a good training camp and I feel better than I felt in a long time. So I don't think he's gonna be ready for the kind of pressure that I'll be bringing in this fight."
Penick's Analysis: Lashley's never going to be a world beater in this sport, but he's made plenty of improvements in his overall game to the point he's going to be a very solid competitor at his current level. He's likely to beat Charles, and he may have beaten Thompson had the rematch happened, but at his age and with pro wrestling taking up quite a bit of his time, this is about where his level's going to remain.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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