Former WWE superstar Lio Rush recently sat down with Forbes to discuss a handful of topics, including his release from WWE, whether or not he’ll wrestle again, and potentially joining All Elite Wrestling.
Check out some of the highlights below:
On being released from WWE:
I was the first group of people that were announced. I actually made the call myself. I saw that there were a lot of news sites posting about it. It made mainstream news, so I was like ‘oh man, this might be a real thing.’ So I called the Head of Talent Relations and I just asked—like, straight up—’Am I one of these people who is going to be released today? Because I’m seeing it all over the internet and I don’t want to find out over the internet or through one of my fans.’
He said yes, unfortunately, you are.
On never wrestling again:
Yes, that was definitely a tweet that I made and have thought that it was very real comment. Even before the release, I would talk to family members, I would talk to friends—people that I’m close to in the wrestling business—people that I’m close to outside of the wrestling business. And I would just have this feeling in my gut or in my heart that my wrestling days were going to come to an end. So I don’t know why. I don’t know why I was feeling like that. I just said to myself, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be wrestling for that much longer.
And then once the release happened, it made me just think about it even more and I said to myself: Why jump right back into something when I have all this time where I don’t have to wrestle right now?
I had good times in WWE. I had bad times too. And some of those bad times were a little traumatizing to me. I just thought to myself: Why put myself back in a situation where I was going to be unhappy?
On potentially joining AEW:
I feel like it’s going to take a lot for me to consider going anywhere because it’s not just about the money to me, you know? It has to be right for me mentally. It has to be like my family. You know, I got a wife, I got two kids and although that money will provide for myself, my family at the end of the day, if I’m not right mentally and I’m not right emotionally, then I’m not even going to be able to do this job.
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