The faction that was taken away way too soon. With Triple H in power as far as Creative is concerned, we wonder only if there is a possible reunion down the line for The Hurt Business. The fan base was definitely there, and the men involved in the faction, specifically Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, Cedric Alexander and of course the legendary MVP, got along and got along famously at that.
The crew only lasted from 2020 to 2021 for their first run, they then briefly got back together in 2022 but if you blinked you missed it. This storyline or rather direction was like so many failed attempts by the old guard, McMahon, and during that time, the company’s creative direction was lagging, as I’ve often discussed…to the point of sounding like a broken record; many stories would start and then stop out of nowhere.
But this one here was a good one that they let slip through their fingers. It did well in merchandise judging by people in the audience wearing t-shirts, and crowd reactions were great. The missed opportunity here was to have them face off against the Bloodline for a lengthy feud.
I’ve written about that before, but of course all that was for naught. So yeah, maybe Triple H will go in that direction. If you ask Bobby Lashley about it though, anything is possible. He made the following statement on The Hurt Business possibly reuniting down the line while speaking with Ryan Satin on Out Of Character:
“You know what, I was thinking about what could happen to actually bring us together, and I thought about this the other day, I was like, if (MVP) made Omos too dangerous, where he couldn’t contain him anymore, and Omos turned on him, he would need somebody to help him.
There’s only one person that can beat Omos. Then, I may need some help, and if I need some help, you have Cedric, you have Shelton, we can take him down, and then we’re babyfaces again. They’ll love us. Anything can happen.”
-via cultaholic.com (Transcription)
Here he is discussing the benefits of the Hurt Business and what they were able to accomplish together as a unit:
He made these statements during an episode of Table For 3 on the WWE Network…
“We were able to give our audience a different look at black talent because, before, it was always like you had to be militant, or dancing, or you had to be this or that. I was like, ‘No, man. All of us make good money.
We carry ourselves in a certain way so we don’t have to be thugs, we don’t have to be this, we don’t have to be that,’ we can show kids such as my son and kids growing up that these three black athletes that are very talented, they can do anything else, but at the same time, they’re not a thug, they’re not tap dancing, they’re not doing any of this.
We’re dressing nice and that was one thing we made sure that we did all the time is come as the character that we wanted to be which was professionals; that’s where the ‘business’ part came into it. I loved everything about it and I think it transcended so many different areas that we want, that we got locked into, and I think so many people saw that.
I got a couple messages on Instagram, they took pictures of their son like, ‘My son went in the closet, put on a little suit after he saw you.’ That’s incredible, that made me feel good.”
-via Wrestling Inc. (Transcription)
Bobby is doing well on his own and MVP is managing Omos, as Bobby went into above, but epic talents like Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander are being misused. To repeat, hopefully Triple H has plans for both men, even if it isn’t to put the band back together, so to speak.