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Since officially making his debut in AEW at Double or Nothing and then his in-ring debut roughly a month later as part of the Royal Rampage match to decide on a new #1 contender for Jon Moxley's then-interim AEW World Championship, Rush has appeared in 16 singles, doubles, or trios matches on Dynamite, Rampage, Dark, or Dark Elevation. He's lost championship matches to Moxley, lost championship matches to Orange Cassidy,and even lost in the first round of both the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament to his old ROH nemesis Bandido and to The Elite in the first round of the AEW World Trios Championship Tournament that saw his turn on his own brother, Dragon Lee, in favor of remaining in allegiance with his La Faccion Ingobernable partner Andrade El Idolo.
Per the official AEW roster page, El Toro Blanco is currently sitting at a career 8-8 record, with a 4-6 record in singles action, a 1-0 record in a tag team, and a 3-2 record as part of a trio. While those aren't exactly dominant numbers, especially in a company like AEW where wins can get artificially inflated due to matches on Dark and Dark Elevation – of which he has worked four – RUSH appears incredibly happy to have found a new home in an American promotion, as he detailed to Lucha Libre Online, via translations from Luis Pulido.
“Honestly, I am fascinated, in awe, and happy in AEW,” RUSH said h/t Fightful. “There had not been that many opportunities, but I have given it my maximum efforts in those chances. I’ve been there for 6 months and I’ve done a lot with LFI. La Facción Ingobernable has arrived to ass-whoop and make a full group of cabrones. Everyone knows RUSH goes wherever there is the best offer & where they will treat me like a real Ingobernable. I won’t brag, as I am still learning & preparing myself. I know the United States is an entirely different world and that you cannot just be a wrestler. You need to get the microphone & know how to speak English, and that’s what I am doing. The White Bull RUSH is quality everywhere he goes & the entire AEW audience knew when RUSH stepped in. They are still being surprised because the work put in talks for itself.”
While it doesn't look like he'll be headed for championship gold any time soon, unless he's handed an unlikely shot at one of the belts on television, RUSH is a featured player in one of the premier Rampage storylines going right now, Preston Vance's betrayal of the Dark Order, and he looks to be headed firmly in the right direction within the company, which can't be said for his original LFI partner, as he's seemingly been trying to get out of his AEW contract for some time now.
Andrade keeps trying to say goodbye to AEW.
While RUSH has sung the praises of AEW over his first six-ish month with the company, Andrade, the man initially expected to lead LFI's AEW expansion, has been trying to get out his deal and the company period to presumably re-join his wife, Charlotte Flair, in WWE. After his totally not planned backstage fight with Sammy Guevara that saw the former La Sombre quietly suspended from the promotion following some back-and-forth action on social media, Dave Meltzer explained Andrade's motives within AEW on Wrestling Observer Radio.
“Andrade is trying to get fired, we all know that,” Meltzer said h/t Inside the Ropes. “So far, when guys want to leave, some will go to great extremes to do that. It has happened in WWE, I have talked to people in WWE who have tried to get fired with some of the craziest things in the world. I have told them, ‘Look, it’s not going to work.’ There were some crazy stories of people trying to do some crazy things to get fired.”
“Getting in a fight was never one of them, but there’s much crazier things than that from people who wanted to leave, get out and they were not going to be allowed to do that, because the company was not going to release them. So now there is a situation on the other front, and there’s not that many, it’s like 3, that want to leave. There’s different stories and whatever, Andrade is one of them, and you know, he has basically said it publicly in that interview.“
Since then, Andrade has undergone surgery on his shoulder, an injury he said happened against The Elite, and said goodbye to AEW, even if there haven't been any further updates since. Will Andrade eventually return to AEW? Only time will tell, but he seems much less appreciative of the opportunity than RUSH.
