posted by Ariel Helwani

If you’re not one of the two million people who has seen Bobby Lashley’s destruction of Mike Cook from this past Saturday’s Maximum Fighting Championship event on HDNet, well then I would like to know just who YOU are.

Anyway, here’s the clip. Check it out, and meet me back here in, say, 24 seconds.

Not bad for an ex-WWE wrestler, eh?

Speaking of wrestling, that clip doesn’t show Cook acting like a complete jackass prior to the fight while wearing a Rey Mysterio wrestling mask and mimicking Hulk Hogan. I’ve interviewed Cook before, and he was very soft-spoken, almost shy. So I was surprised to see him to try to make fun of Lashley’s wrestling past instead of focusing on the task at hand. Not to mention the fact that he looked really ridiculous after Lashley submitted him via guillotine choke just 24 seconds into the fight. Lashley added insult to injury by saying this in his post-fight interview:

“I’m here for business. Everybody comes out there with this wrestling thing, and tries to make fun of this wrestling thing; I’m real. You know, I’m coming here to fight. If they don’t want to fight me, they can play around. If they play around, I’m going to knock them out, or choke them out, and that’s what I did today: Choked him out; made him pay. Now he can go put back on the mask and have fun with himself.”

The knock against Lashley during his WWE career was that he lacked charisma, so it’s funny to see him show off his personality with a promo like that as an MMA fighter. I guess that’s what happens when you try to memorize a script some writer wrote for you.

On top of being impressed with Lashley’s interviewing skills, I continue to be impressed with his steady climb up MMA’s heavyweight ladder. After he defeated Joshua Franklin via TKO (doctor stoppage) in December, his critics said that he hadn’t shown much. After going the distance with Jason Guida in March, they said he looked sluggish. So, I’m wondering what Lashley’s critics will say now.

Obviously, it’s easy to compare Lashley to current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar due to their WWE backgrounds, but those who follow the sport know that Lashley is nowhere near as gifted athletically as Lesnar is right now. For starters, Lesnar was a better amateur wrestler, and an even better athlete than Lashley. Remember, he almost made the Minnesota Vikings in 2004 after never playing football in high school. That’s not to say that Lashley can’t become the next Lesnar. In fact, I think he has all the tools to become, pardon the pun, “The Next Big Thing” in MMA.

He trains at arguably the best MMA camp in the world, American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla. He’s stronger and more agile than most MMA heavyweights, and most importantly, he’s got a huge chip on his shoulder these days due to all the wrestling jokes. Plus, he continues to state that he’s in no rush to fight in the UFC, because once he does reach the big show, he wants to be ready to contend for a title right away.

Next up for Lashley is Bob Sapp on June 27. It’s safe to say that Sapp won’t bust Lashley’s balls due to his wrestling background, since he’s been known to dabble in the Japanese wrestling scene himself. And while no one would ever confuse Sapp with a legitimate heavyweight fighter anymore (if they ever did), he is certainly Lashley’s biggest and strongest opponent yet.

I never thought I would be excited to see Sapp fight in MMA again, but I can’t wait to see if Lashley can pass his next test. If so, I expect him to get signed by Strikeforce right away. Keep your eye on him, because I think his ascension up the MMA ranks is going to be about as quick as his victory on Friday night.