Lio Rush on hiatus: “During that time, I was in a bad mental space”

“During that time, I was in a bad mental space. I feel like I’ve been pretty open with the public about my issues with depression and anxiety and stuff like that. I just needed a little break. I needed some time away to rethink, to be with my family, to remind myself of why I wanted to be a sports entertainer in the first place and be in the WWE in the first place. And that experience that I had on Raw was a very cool experience. I got to work with veterans of this business, people that have been a part of this business for so long. I’ve gotten to be on every single last pay-per-view. I’ve gotten to walk out at the Royal Rumble. I’ve gotten to walk out at WrestleMania. All of the things that takes guys so long to accomplish and I accomplished it all in six months. And, that time, I’m incredibly grateful for but, at the same time, it was eating me up. Just because, again, I got signed to the WWE to be one of the greatest cruiserweights, and it was hard for me. It was hard to not be in the ring. It’s hard to not show the world what I was capable of in the ring. So I accomplished what I accomplished on Monday Night Raw, and to come back to NXT was a huge, huge step for me. And yeah, I’m grateful that I’m here. I’m grateful that I’m a part of NXT, grateful that I’m in the ring with the amount of talent that I’m in the ring with. Yeah, just had to regroup, rethink, refocus, and get back to work.”

source: Sportingnews.com