Rey Mysterio left WWE over a year ago, and he is still keeping very busy, with no plans of slowing down. He has, of course, been heavily involved with Lucha Underground for the past two seasons and just last week competed in a very important match for the company. He’s also arguably the most notable and important cruiserweight icon in wrestling history, so you might think he’d have an opinion or two on the new WWE cruiserweight division, which we just recently learned is getting its own weekly live show.
Mysterio stopped by Sam Roberts’ Wrestling Podcast for episode 103 and shared his thoughts on the revamped WWE cruiserweight division. Mysterio said that this has been a passion project of Dean Malenko’s for a long time, dating back to 2001, when the division made a comeback the last time.
But Rey also thinks that Lucha Underground’s success and creativity is part of the reason for the cruiserweight renaissance.
“I truly believe that now that Lucha Underground has been around and run for three seasons, it was almost a temptation to, in a way, display the talent that they had, whether it was in NXT or whatnot, and start running with that talent, because of what Lucha Underground was doing. We’re completely different. In a way, we have more to offer.”
In its short time on the air, Lucha Underground has definitely been influential and has earned no shortage of rave reviews, but it’s nearly impossible to tell whether it’s actually contributed to the plan to bring back a cruiserweight division within WWE. One could argue that the trend toward diverse cruiserweight talent internationally in promotions like Progress, PWG, EVOLVE, and more probably turned Triple H’s head more than Lucha Underground, but there’s definitely a conversation there.
In the meantime, let’s just continue to enjoy loads of fun wrestling every week, shall we? And also Raw.
(h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription)
