Rey Mysterio is one of the most popular wrestlers of the last 25 years, and has worked all over the world and for nearly every wrestling promotion, including ECW, WCW, WWE of course, and Lucha Underground. In 2015, Mysterio left WWE after 13 years there. He was 40 years old and wasn’t being used a lot, so it felt like the right time for him to go. In mid-July, there were reports that WWE and Global Force Wrestling were looking to sign Mysterio, which led to a lot of WWE fans wondering how he might fit in at his old home or if he would try something new with GFW.
Mysterio won three WWE Championships during his run there (two WWE Titles, one World Heavyweight Title) and at 5’6 is the smallest WWE Champion ever. Does that mean he is heading back to WWE? Nope. It’s not going to happen according to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated. The report from Barrasso notes that WWE doesn’t want to bring Mysterio back and part of the reason is because Mysterio has Konnan representing him. Apparently, WWE and Vince McMahon still don’t like Konnan after the whole Max Moon angle that led to Konnan leaving WWE to go back to Mexico. That situation is covered in this WWE.com article from 2013.
There may be more to the story, considering Mysterio is 42 years old and has had a lot of injuries, mainly to his knees. If you recall the last few years of Mysterio’s WWE run, he wasn’t used that much and was injured quite a bit. If they weren’t using him a lot in the last couple of years in his career, why would WWE be interested in featuring him more now? It’s easy to see why WWE would stay away.
Now that WWE is apparently out of the picture, it’s possible that Mysterio may head to GFW and become their biggest star. Since GFW only tapes shows for nearly one week every month, it’s a light schedule that Mysterio would like. Where there may be an issues, as noted by Barrasso, is that Mysterio wants to be able to control his third party bookings because he still works a lot in Mexico and he wouldn’t want GFW to interfere with that. That seems like a minor issue that can can be solved easily since Konnan is already working in GFW and Mysterio going to GFW seems likely at this point.
Will Mysterio ever return to WWE? Probably down the road for a Hall of Fame induction because there isn’t bad blood there. Be patient, though, because it will take a few years for it to happen.
