Originally published at Lio Rush: "Dante Martin is better than I was when I was his age"
Lio Rush is excited about the idea of teaming with Dante Martin.
One-half of Top Flight, Dante Martin appeared on the 10/6 edition of AEW Dynamite and said he is ready for a new challenge and that challenge came in the form of Malakai Black who gave Martin the ‘Black Mass’ kick and accepted the challenge. Following that segment, during a backstage vignette, Lio Rush offered to help Dante as he progresses in AEW.
Rush was the most recent guest on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast and expressed that he is excited about the possibility of teaming with Dante. Lio first met Dante and Darius Martin while he was signed to Ring of Honor and both Darius and Dante were teenagers.
We definitely would . I think Dante is super talented. I mean he’s so young. He is better than I was when I was his age so I can only imagine where he’s gonna be in the next few years.
So funny thing, I actually met him and his brother when I was signed to Ring of Honor and they had to have been 15, 16 years old at the time and they were fans of me and they took — I think Dante sent me the picture and I’ll have to find it for you, but he took a picture with me at my merch table and I thought that-that was crazy. I thought that-that was insane. So yeah. I think that would be pretty cool.
Although Lio had an up and down run in WWE, he is grateful for his time there. Rush feels that he was not a “promo guy” until he was thrown into the mix of Monday Night Raw and that is when he began to realize and improve his microphone skills.
I’m grateful for my time in WWE as well. It wasn’t always that and some of those moments, you know, put me in a position where it forced me to have to learn how to do something. I was never really a promo guy before Monday Night Raw, and I think being thrown to the TV in that position week after week, it kind of forced me to really hone in on my promos and really study and really — I was writing and recording and putting out promos on my social media every day, every day. There wasn’t a time when I wasn’t cutting a promo or hopping on a livestream and talking to my fans but playing that character so, just so I can improvise and be witty so, you know, I enjoyed it a lot and I can’t wait, I can’t wait to get on TV and take what I’ve learned in WWE as far as talking in my promos and on top of that, being able to wrestle and perform in the ring at the same time. I think it’s gonna be really cool. I’m excited.
Darius Martin has been out of action since early 2021. He underwent ACL surgery in April. Darius and Dante were formally announced to have signed with AEW in November 2020.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Excuse Me: The Vickie Guerrero Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.