Veteran MMA fighter Frank Trigg, who recently spent time as an on-air performer with TNA, is now re-signed with UFC. In an exclusive one-on-one interview with MMATorch.com columnist Jason Bent, Trigg gave expansive thoughts specifically about his time in TNA, Brock Lesnar's transition to MMA, Bobby Lashley, and the chances of some specific TNA wrestlers being able to transition into MMA. The following is an extended excerpt. A link to the complete interview follows.

Jason Bent: Brock Lesnar, the UFC Heavyweight Champion, achieved his initial fame by starring in the world of professional wrestling and now Bobby Lashley is looking to follow in the same path; since you have been in both the MMA world and pro wrestling world, was there anyone in the TNA locker room who physically and athletically could have the tools to at least give it a go in MMA?

Frank Trigg: The problem is that you talking about the anomaly of Brock Lesnar. He is really not that technically sound as a professional mixed martial artist. He is hugely athletic, amazingly big and extensively strong. He's three hundred pounds; a natural three hundred pounder. He isn't blown up like some of these other guys like 260 or 270 and they lift weights to put on another forty pounds. Brock is three hundred pounds to begin with. Lesnar had problems in college wrestling in trying to keep his weight down long enough to make weight. He really is a big guy like one of those big, corn-fed Nebraskans. He is that big guy from Minnesota and that's just the way he is. He outweighed Couture by eighty pounds, Herring by forty pounds and he is just so much bigger than these guys plus he is just as athletic as they are and then four times as strong. It makes it very difficult to battle a guy like that.

Bobby Lashley is kind of the same way but he has also put a lot of mass on him through training in order to get as big as he is. He has had to maintain this size for his pro wrestling as well and he is going to want to maintain that size as well in order to be a bigger than average heavyweight.

With that being said, a lot of those other guys in pro wrestling are smaller guys. You have your A. J. Styles, Christian Cage who are small guys. They are six feet tall, 180 or 185 lbs. and they are average sized guys. Of course, A.J. is shorter than that but they are average sized guys. Put those guys up against Georges St. Pierre or Anderson Silva and they're a match.

Lashley and Lesnar are coming into the heavyweight division at a time where the division is pretty torn apart and there really isn't that much depth. You aren't able to look at a guy and say, "oh, he is top twenty or top thirty" but really just that's all you have got. So with the heavyweight division, you can kind of take advantage of it. A guy like Brock took advantage of it because he is athletic and strong and the better guys who are athletic are going to be smaller guys.

Samoa Joe is a good athlete. He maintains and is a solid heavyweight and like I said, Christian Cage could do it. He could pull it off and A.J. Styles could pull it off. Kurt Angle I would say would have been the best bet, but now you are looking at a guy who is 41 or 42 years old and has been sitting on the couch for the last ten years in being in pro wrestling for the past ten years. As opposed to learning how to do a takedown hard or hurt your opponent he has been revamping his competition at how to do moves and techniques that are not going to hurt somebody. Although he is in the right position after ten years that they all look good, but none of them are going to hurt anybody. That is not going to transplant into a real fight because in a real fight you have got to want to hurt them and put a hurting on them to make them stop fighting. To get that tap out or the knockout you have got to put a hurting on them. And Angle hasn't been doing that for the last ten or twelve years so I would to like to say that Kurt could probably be able to do it but now that he is older and his neck is bad. For the rest of these guys to come in, they haven't made that adjustment and they are going to be coming in at the toughest weight classes. Because if you just look at the scope of how fights go, the welterweights at 170 and the middleweights at 185 are pretty much the toughest guys out there and everybody is that size. I mean look how tough the 205 pound division is right now and it's just incredible. So it's really tough and literally anyone can beat any guy. We are in the era of Lyoto Machida right now, and I don't even want to say it's his era because any one of those guys can beat any one of the other guys because they are so competitive and so close to each other. With that being said I don't know.

Looking at the scope of it, I don't even want to guess who could make it because some of these guys might try. You won't know until they step in there and try to make a run at being a mixed martial artist.

Jason Bent: Many fans, and even a fair amount of fighters, have had problems with Brock Lesnar getting such opportunities so early in his career, and it seems that having been a pro wrestler only created a bigger bull's-eye upon him; how do you feel about his meteoric ascension and did you experience some negativity yourself for heading into the world of professional wrestling from fellow fighters or fans?

Read this complete interview, an MMATorch.com exclusive, at our sister website, featuring more of Trigg's assessment of his time in pro wrestling, Brock Lesnar's MMA reputation, his decision not to train Jose Canseco for his MMA fight, and much more on MMA, politics, his life, and more. CLICK HERE or visit MMATorch.com.

We suggest these recent related articles...

TV RATINGS: TNA Impact & ROH TV viewership - Week 19 on Dest. America - Impact surges post-BFG, ROH draws big audience

TV WRESTLING VIEWERSHIP - Week of Sept. 28: Full Break Down of last week's Pro Wrestling TV with DVR viewing

TNA NEWS: TNA announces TV tapings on January U.K. Tour