8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 2)

2. Manager In Distress

lio rush elias
WWE.com

Lio Rush is a gifted young wrestler who can do pretty incredible things inside the ring. He’s also got the “gift of gab,” which has landed him a secondary role outside the cruiserweight division as Bobby Lashley’s manager.

He also apparently is serving as a damsel-in-distress on Raw.

During Lashley’s match against Kevin Owens, Elias tried and finally succeeded at catching Rush, holding him in a full nelson long enough for Lashley to get distracted, allowing KO to roll him up for the pin. Afterward, the heels beat Bobby down, and when Lio tried to leap off the top rope at them, Elias swatted him like a bug.

Keep in mind that Rush is about the same size (maybe a few pounds lighter) than Rey Mysterio. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Rush should be able to take out Elias, but it should mean that he isn’t just a helpless manager who might as well be a damsel-in-distress trope – especially when he’s tearing it up on 205 Live at the same time.

Hopefully WWE figures out a balance here, or else Rush will just be the guy too small to hang with the big boys.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.