Lio Rush was close to calling it quits in pro wrestling. Now he’s ready to prove people wrong and prove something to himself.

The former WWE superstar and NXT cruiserweight champion will make his in-ring debut for Major League Wrestling (MLW) on Jan. 6 against World Middleweight champion Myron Reed at the Kings of Colosseum (7 p.m., YouTube, DAZN). It’s the start of the next major act of his wrestling career since being released by WWE in April as part of cuts made due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

His return, though, almost didn’t happen. Rush, whose real name is Lionel Green, said he was “extremely close” to ending his career in the ring. He considered focusing on other goals and aspirations.

“It was a very serious topic of discussion not just with myself, but my wife, my family,” said the 26-year-old Rush, a father of two with a third child on the way. “Not only getting burned out, again, I was getting discouraged [in WWE] constantly being told, ‘You’re not a star.’ Constantly being told, ‘We don’t see you in a big title picture,’ and that does a lot to someone’s confidence, especially when you’re in the biggest sports entertainment company that there is, and you’ve got all of these people in power saying you’re not good enough for three years straight.”

A July 26 match against All Elite Wrestling’s Joey Janela, Rush’s longtime rival on the independent scene, for Game Changer Wrestling in Atlantic City was supposed to be his goodbye to the industry. But Rush was moved by the outpouring of support from fans that day after opening up about his mental health struggle in a promo following the match.

“That was supposed to be the final farewell to kind of end a chapter and it ended up starting a whole new one,” Rush said.

While he’s had a few matches since then, most notably with Mexican promotion Lucha Libre AAA and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, MLW is the place he wanted to truly relaunch things. They were one of the first companies that reached out to him and made him feel appreciated.

MLW, which presents itself more as a combat sport than sports entertainment, is growing after signing distribution deals in the U.S. with DAZN, Pluto TV and fubo Sports Network. Debuting in a championship match on MLW’s first big show of 2021 illustrated to Rush the promotion’s commitment to him.

“It also shows me that they trust me to put me in a position like that based off of the experience that I had in the WWE as well as on the independent scene prior to that,” Rush said. “My last stint with the WWE was me being a [cruiserweight] champion, so it’s only right to show the world that I’m still a champion regardless of an actual title around my waist. I think it’s perfect for me to try to make an impact and come in strong.”

Rush is just excited for people to see him wrestle. While he spent some time in the ring with NXT and “205 Live,” his WWE stint was most known for him being Bobby Lashley’s hype man and manager for several months spanning 2018-19.

He enjoyed the creative experience. The promos helped him become the better all-around performer MLW is getting now. Rush is happy he’s getting to step back in the ring again in MLW, where wants to wrestle the likes of Low Ki., Jordan Oliver and Brian Pillman Jr., and use his WWE experience to help fellow performers.

“This is a good thing because people that follow my career in WWE and are looking at me now, are gonna see me wrestle for the first time, which is insane,” Rush said. “And the people that already knew that I was a wrestler, they’re gonna see me wrestle again and I feel like with this chip on my shoulder, showing the world that I’m one of the best wrestlers in the world. I’m coming in with my roots. I’m coming in hungry and fired up. I definitely think you are gonna see a big difference with who I am now and who I used to be.”

Rush has done vignettes for MLW that have tried to show a character that exudes the success, money and confidence one would expect from someone who has worked in WWE and the music industry. He admits he enjoys the “flashy lifestyle.”

“That is in me,” he said. “If it wasn’t in me, I wouldn’t be able to pull that off. So, I definitely think it is important at least for me to kind of portray that side of me to make the character more believable.”

Wrestling isn’t the only thing Rush has his hands in nowadays. Friends with the rapper Wale, he’s making music again, releasing a hip-hop album “Ever After” in May and a new music video for “Do You Remember” in December. He is also a participant in the MTV reality competition show “The Challenge.”

It all seems fitting because his “Man of the Hour” moniker stems from him not limiting himself to one thing and always doing something different, “every hour on the hour.” He’s looking forward to seeing what could happen for him in a post-pandemic world as more opportunities arise. In the coming years, Rush would like to be a full-time member of the New Japan roster and travel the country with the promotion.

“It was to not only prove to the people at WWE, but to prove to myself I am a star,” Rush said. “I do have value to someone out there. I want to see if I could make some things happen without a machine behind me.”

It will help him move past how things ended in WWE. Rush said people he looked up to like Triple H and Shawn Michaels, who run NXT, “were trying to drill it in my head for whatever reason” that he wasn’t good enough to be a star. Rush thinks it may have been an attempt to “humble” him. But whatever the case, it nearly led to him saying goodbye to wrestling. Instead, he chose to write a new chapter with MLW.

“There was a lot of trauma that came with that release and MLW was one of the first companies that kind of reached out to me and showed me that I was appreciated,” Rush said. “I definitely went full force with that opportunity and it turned out great.”