More on Lio Rush-AEW, More Expirations On The Horizon (Patreon)

Lio Rush announced today that his AEW contract expires on February 14th, and he will be a free agent.

Last night, Fightful learned that many talent and staff at Rampage became aware that Lio Rush wouldn't be remaining with the company. From AEW's side, we're told that the contract expiration is one of many that is running out over the next month or so, and there's a possibility that some of those expirations will be used  moving forward. We're told they won't be publicly announced by the company. We reached out to Lio Rush for comment or clarity but haven't heard back.

Those in AEW we spoke to say they haven't seen him at AEW since early December. One source says they believe he was scheduled for an appearance after that in December, but it didn't happen.

Fightful spoke to Lio about AEW and Tony Khan last week, and he said the following.
"It's always a cool thing when you have somebody passionate about what you love doing," Lio began by saying. "Tony is clearly, incredibly passionate about professional wrestling. A lot of his excitement bounces off people and his energy is very contagious when it comes to wrestling. It's cool to have a boss that thinks of wrestling in that aspect. When it comes to me in particular, it was a nice feeling to have someone with that much influence and power say, 'this guy is good and I want him as part of my company.' That's such a compliment, a really cool compliment. I'm super appreciative of that." 

"I got offered a deal initially and things happen, things change, the world of wrestling has changed. I will say this, this is no secret, this is me pointing out the obvious; I'm a lone wolf. I go where I want, I like putting things on my resume and I like working different places and wrestling anybody and everybody. We've seen that since I left WWE. I've been to AAA, MLW, AEW, New Japan. (My independence) is very important. It's very important for my mental stability. I never really like being stuck in one spot, especially if I don't have control over that," Rush said. "This is the time's we are in with wrestling right now and it's a beautiful thing that you can have someone be signed here, but also work there and signed to multiple deals, but still be able to pop up. We just saw Mickie James get announced for the Royal Rumble, that's incredible. It's no secret. I'm on a deal with AEW, but I'm also on a deal with New Japan. I'm also doing my own things back at home. It's pretty open-ended and it's exciting."

Lio had tweeted that he would be working with Tony Khan and Megha Parekh for positive change in 2022.

https://twitter.com/IamLioRush/status/1477383798320816129

Rush has also worked with NJPW and GCW since 2020, and is scheduled to be a part of AEW's hip hop collaboration in addition to dropping his own EP in February.

We'll work to learn if there's more on this.