As fate would have it, when MVP got back to the United States, Impact were already working on a replacement that could potentially tie-in to his injury, someone who MVP knew, and still knows, very well. “They asked me ‘What’s your relationship with Bobby Lashley?’ I said ‘Man that’s my boy we were tight, we’re cool.’ They asked ‘What would say if we brought him in and we do angle where you brought him in as your stand-in and he wins the title?’ And I was like ‘I’m with it let’s go.'”

Given the nature of the injury, many people thought that MVP might have missed his final chance to win a major world title. However, due to who was being drafted in to replace him, MVP did the one thing that he has since prided himself on in recent years, doing business. “When people asked me like ‘Man how do you feel? Man that was your chance to be the guy, to win the title,’ I’m not bothered by it at all because, again, from a business standpoint, it worked out way better that way. I mean yeah, I could have had the title and it would have been me and Kenny King, but then you wouldn’t have had that run with me, Kenny, and Bobby.”

MVP’s meniscus would eventually heal, and while he never ended up winning the Impact World Championship, his relationship with Lashley would become one of the strongest in all of wrestling. MVP and Lashley are still extremely close to this day, and as part of The Hurt Syndicate with Shelton Benjamin and MJF in AEW, they are still doing business their way, all thanks to a knee injury at an indie show in the UK.

Please credit “Marking Out” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.