Back in November of 2020, former WWE NXT Cruiserweight Champion Lio Rush announced that he would be part of an upcoming Power Rangers project titled Legend of the White Dragon. The movie, which is still in production, is said to be a reunion movie featuring several members of the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers cast, including Jason David Frank, who played Tommy in the first three seasons of the original show and has reprised his role multiple times in various series and movies within the franchise.
However, in a new interview with the Say Less podcast, Lio Rush revealed that he was unable to take part in Legend of the White Dragon due to suffering an injury. Rush has had multiple injuries in the past few years, and even announced his retirement in 2021 before returning to the ring for short stints in AEW and NJPW.
“Well actually, that opportunity [Power Rangers acting gig] kind of got stripped away from me because of my second injury. So yeah, yeah. I had a lot going on. I believe I was supposed to be one of the villains. I was gonna have a small fighting scene… I was probably fighting off one of the Power Rangers, which would have been dope. I was looking forward to that.” (h/t Fightful)
Lio Rush Also Spoke About His Relationship With Tony Khan While Working In AEW
Elsewhere on the podcast, Rush opened up about his short stint in AEW which ended at the beginning of 2022. According to the star, Tony Khan was a fan of his but didn’t know what to do with him on his programming, seeing him as more of a manager than in-ring talent.
“Of course not. When I say things, I don’t wanna sound like it was breaking news because I feel like these things are so blatantly obvious. It’s like, yanno, he made it pretty clear to me, verbally, that when he was a fan of me, it was when I was in WWE and I was doing the manager stuff with Bobby [Lashley].
If that’s how he saw me, that’s the only light he sees me in… [then] that’s [probably what] he’s gonna shift me to be in that kind of role. Which I’m not, yanno… I’m so grateful for that time period [in WWE] because it taught me how to talk, it taught me how to present myself and build others up.
No, I don’t think that [they] exactly knew what to do with me. That’s always a frustrating thing, but like you said when [I] say stuff it just gets f*cking blown up.” (h/t Fightful)