MVP Names Whose Idea It Was To Pair Him With Bobby Lashley
On the latest episode of the Out of Character Podcast with Ryan Satin, MVP joined the show to talk about his partnership with The All Mighty Bobby Lashley and whose idea it was to put the two together. The former United States Champion revealed that during his time as Director of Monday Night RAW, Paul Heyman was an advocate of the Lashley-MVP pairing.
"I can't take credit for it, it was actually Bobby's idea and it was something that Paul Heyman wanted to do," MVP said. "Bless him for it because Bobby and I have a very natural chemistry and we work well together because we're actual friends. I wish I could take credit for that pairing but once it came together, Bobby and I continued to throw ideas at each other and fortunately the door was open for us to put in a lot of input regarding where we went creatively and as you can see it's been money. It's worked out well, Bobby beats people up and I talk about it."
Although Lashley and MVP have maintained their relationship throughout this time, The Hurt Business was a faction that dominated WWE during the pandemic and at one time held all the championships on Monday Night RAW. During their time as a group, the four superstars received tons of praise from around the wrestling business, including praise from The Rock. MVP spoke during a recent interview about The Hurt Business and who the group was interested in adding as the 5th member.
The 48-year-old revealed how the idea of The Hurt Business came about and who came up with the idea for the faction. MVP also spoke about the group deciding to include Cedric Alexander after Shelton Benjamin was the first member added to his partnership with Bobby Lashley.
"We were fortunate at that point to have a little bit of input, Bobby had the idea for a management type stable and a Suge Knight type character," MVP said. "Bobby said a cross between The Rock's character from Ballers and Suge Knight. Shelton was like that's MVP all day, nobody can do that better than him. Once he put me and Bobby together, the thought of adding Shelton was great and we were excited about adding Shelton and it was cool that they were with us on that.
"Then when it came to adding a fourth member, I knew Cedric from around but Shelton actually had a relationship with him from his time in Ring of Honor. What we ended up doing was we felt like we needed a young gun and a high flier to round out the group and when we were given our options of who it could be, we felt that Cedric fit the most and simultaneously round out what we were trying to do. It was really cool that we were allowed a lot of input into who we wanted [for the group] and how we wanted to do it."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Out of Character with Ryan Satin with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.