Author: Lio Rush has been experiencing his fair share of backstage heat these past few months, as recently reported by Fightful.com. This explains his sudden absence from television. Mark Henry heard about things so he approached Lio for a chat. The problem is, Lio lied to his face.
Mark Henry opens up about Lio Rush blatantly lying to his face.
If there’s one veteran who knows how to navigate the backstage system more than most anyone else in WWE right now that would be Mark Henry, but when he pulled Lio Rush aside recently to talk, Lio lied to his face. On today’s episode of SiriusXM’s Busted Open Radio, Henry opened up about this experience:
“I pulled him aside the last time I saw him and told him ‘I’m hearing stuff in the locker room. What’s wrong?’ He said nothing’s wrong. It was a blatant lie to my face. I let him know that if he has a question, right now is the time to do that.
“You’re likely not going to run into someone who knows the system like I know the system. He didn’t do that. He lied to my face. Sometimes you have to talk to people that know more than you do.
“If you can’t pay for a rental car, you can’t pay for a hotel with the money that you’re making every week then you need to change the way you’re spending. You can’t blame that on the office. If you spent everything before you got it, that’s your problem.
“Back in my day, they would’ve told him, ‘Lio, Bobby shouldn’t have to drive. He shouldn’t have to carry his bag.’ Yokozuna was my responsibility.
“After these comments, he’s gonna have to go somewhere, or the company’s gonna have to tell him, ‘Good luck with your future endeavors!'”
“Nobody is exempt from being respectful to the business.”
There are two main reasons Lio Rush has been recently receiving heat from his peers. The first reason is he, reportedly, insists on having his wife present at almost all times and he has even been trying to push the idea of a reality TV show with her. The second reason is for ignoring the advice given from Finn Balor, who had approached Lio after he chose not to follow proper backstage etiquette expected for the new members of the roster which includes carrying water and luggage for performers to the locker room area.
Balor is no stranger to following backstage protocol. Then known as Prince Devitt, Balor used to have to clean toilets, sweep and hose off the cat pee on the Japanese streets outside the NJPW dojo, as well as wash the senior wrestlers as part of his initiation as a young boy in the New Japan system. While it might seem a bit strange or almost like hazing, Finn never looked at it that way and said it was a way to teach discipline and respect for the craft. This article has a lot of details on what the process was like going through the NJPW system.
Instead of taking the advice offered to him, Lio ignored it and turned it into an issue of race when addressing it on Twitter.
I believe we are all able to carry our own gear and provisions. I treat others as equals and as a young black male have often had to fight for my own equality. https://t.co/lwdySHrGl6
— Man Of The Hour ⌛️ (@itsLioRush) April 30, 2019
Mark Henry wasn’t impressed by this.
“It’s not a race issue,” according to Henry. “It’s an ego issue. Who are you? Nobody is exempt from being respectful to the business and paying homage to the guys drawing money. We all have done it. Steve Austin did it. The Rock did it. You better than The Rock? Get the hell outta here!”
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