(How did Bobby Lashley go from wrestling at a svelte 177-pounds in college to owning a Herculean physique and a head big enough to have its own zip code? Certain events, playa. PicProps: Heavy.com)

So, it was either the lingering effects of mononucleosis, that pesky bout of dehydration (possibly owing to the mononucleosis) or pressure from the haters that caused Bobby Lashley to shit the bed against Chad Griggs at Strikeforce: Houston last month. So said Lashley during an appearance on Ariel Helwani’s "The MMA Hour" yesterday. We’d be able to pin it down further for you, but reports make it seem like the WWE-wrestler-turned-MMA-heavyweight was still being kind of vague about the whole thing.

One thing is certain, however. After Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said some fairly unflattering things about Lashley needing to do some soul searching in the wake of that fight, the American Top Team product says he wants back in the cage ASAP. Preferably against Griggs.

"I already asked for a rematch, because when you have certain events like I did that sort of hindered me from being able to open up and fight, I’ve got to go back," Lashley said. "I’d hate for them to use that fight to boost somebody’s career, saying, ‘Okay, he beat Bobby,’ because that wasn’t really the case. If I didn’t have these problems, and I’d been able to go out there and fight, I think it would have been a pretty quick win for me. But I just didn’t have anything in me."

Yeah, kind of like “certain events” kept me from fulfilling my true destiny as a tight end in the NFL and/or becoming an astronaut, like I’d planned throughout grade school.

Anyway, in terms of specifics, Lashley claims he had mono before his fight with Griggs, though it isn’t clear exactly how close to the fight we’re talking about. We assume if the guy had mono the week of, or a couple of days prior to a scheduled bout, promoters and athletic commission officials probably wouldn’t let him fight. Then again, this is Strikeforce, so anything is possible.

We already knew that Lashley scared the shit out of his girlfriend when he had to make his exit from the Toyota Center on a stretcher after succumbing to Griggs via second-round TKO. Now Lashley said he was also in the hospital a couple of days before the fight because he just was “not feeling good.” 

"When I went to the hospital afterwards, they said I was really dehydrated,” Lashley said. “I went to the hospital on Thursday before the fight because I wasn’t feeling very good. I was just sluggish and not feeling good, so I went to urgent care and got checked out. I thought I was going to be okay. We didn’t do any blood work, but they gave me an IV because they said I was a little dehydrated then and when I went in there and fought I didn’t have anything in me."

As for referee Jon Schorle’s indefensible decision to stand him up from the mount with just about a minute left in the second, Lashley said that didn’t help either:  "I didn’t even know what was going on there,” he commented.

Lastly, some of you Tony Robbins types may be wondering how Lashley is going to turn this negative into a positive. Well, I’m glad you asked because Lashley says he’s actually happy he lost, since it has alleviated the crippling pressure he was feeling after heroically crushing absolute tomato cans in his first five professional fights. See, there’s a silver lining in this after all …

"Ever since I got into the fight game I’ve had people badmouthing me … and all that stuff got into my head … Now, after that fight was a real eye-opener,” Lashley said. “I didn’t go in there at 100 percent and now everyone was like, ‘This is what we wanted; we wanted to see him get beat.’ So now, I really don’t care. I’m going out there to fight and I’m not worried about any critics.”

Gee, that’s great. But look pro fighters, I know you have to make a living and all, but I’m only going to say this one more time: If you’re too injured or too sick to fight, don’t fight. If you do fight, I don’t want to hear about how injured or sick you were after the fact.