Tony Khan says the best way Lio Rush can use his many talents is inside of a wrestling ring.
Tony Khan took part in a media call on Thursday to promote AEW Full Gear and was asked by WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard about Lio Rush’s in-ring return and his thoughts on how the tag team match went. Khan said that he didn’t want to go into too much detail since there’s a story developing between Rush and Dante Martin, but did take some time to praise Rush and shared how adamant he was about getting him to end his retirement.
“I think it is a story that is developing between Lio and Dante, so without saying too much, I don’t think you or anybody wants me to probably say where [its] going, but I really enjoyed it and I have had a lot of people come up and [tell me] they enjoyed it and it’s something that I felt really strongly about. And I haven’t made it a secret that I really like Lio and I think he’s a tremendous talent and I think he’s benefitted from the coaching that I’ve given him, he’s got coaching from others. I think Sonjay [Dutt] did a great job on that match last night coaching with them. Sonjay and I work close with Lio and Dante and [Matt] Sydal and [Lee] Moriarty, so I am huge fan of Lio Rush and I really think he’s got a lot,” Khan said.
“I think he’s had — and I’ll choose my words carefully here — when Lio retired from wrestling, he came in here and he did one show for us, and he retired from wrestling. I actively recruited him to come back and thought it would make a lot of sense for Lio, at his young age, once he got over the injury” Khan explained, “to just trust me and say let’s just give this a shot. I think he had a tough go other place and he was mentally burnt out on the wrestling business.
“He’s done other things, he’s a great athlete but he’s got a great personality and he’s been on MTV’s The Challenge, which is a big show. But if he’s not wrestling, I don’t think he’s using the great talent that he has and so I am glad people got to see it last night. He debuted in the Casino Battle Royale [at Double Or Nothing in May] but we’d never seen him wrestle on [AEW] TV before in an actual sanctioned match, so I was really pleased with how it turned out and for the live crowd,” Khan noted, “I went back out with Lio and Dante when we were at break and raised their hands for the crowd because I thought they did that well. It was very good.”
Tony Khan also spoke about wrestling tribalism over the years and said it’s not unlike what pro sports circles experience; check out his explanation at this link.
If you use this transcript, credit WrestleZone and link back to this post.
Check out the full media call with Tony Khan below:
