One of yesterday’s biggest news story was the end of WWE and lucha legend Rey Mysterio’s bizarre contract issues, and an official end to Mysterio’s time in WWE.
Mysterio is now free to go wherever he’d like and do whatever he wants, so we thought we’d help him out. Listed below are our seven best ideas for how WWE’s Biggest Little Man should spend his time as a free man. If you’ve got any better ideas, let us know in the comments section below.
Note: Any “WHAT’S RAY MISTERIOSO DOING IN THE IMPACT ZONE” jokes will result in immediate disqualification from life.
1. Go To Mexico, Reunite Car Stereo
Okay, they were never called “Car Stereo,” just Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara.
Nobody seems to have noticed, but they’re the new Diesel and Razor Ramon. Remember when Kevin Nash and Scott Hall went to WCW, and WWF tried to just put other wrestlers in those gimmicks and pretend they were the originals? A long-con version of that’s happening right now. The original Sin Cara left the company and returned to Mexico as “MYZTEZIZ,” but “Sin Cara” remained. WWE put Hunico under the mask and kept the character going. WWE’s so desperate for a “new Rey Mysterio” that they kept Actual Rey Mysterio under contract against his will, and now Fake Sin Cara’s teaming with Kalisto, a talented performer about 80% of casual viewers would identify as “fake Rey Mysterio.” It’s not totally fair to him — not every little luchador in a mask is trying to be Rey Mysterio — but pairing him up with Sin Cara isn’t helping.
So why not have Rey Mysterio go to Mexico, reunite with Myzteziz and show the world what that team could’ve done if they’d ever, ever wrestled teams who could wrestle lucha libre style?
2. Be Dario Cueto’s Cage Monster
Mysterio was backstage at an October taping of El Rey Network’s Lucha Underground, so him popping up in Dario Cueto’s Temple is a foregone conclusion. Of course he’ll be there. His friends all work there, it’s an offshoot of AAA and it’s one of the most buzzworthy wrestling shows on television.
My suggestion is that we solve Lucha Underground’s greatest mystery by having Rey Mysterio be Dario Cueto’s off-screen cage monster. It’s probably Frankenstein or a Wolfman so they can do an El Santo movie homage, but I’d laugh my ass off if the camera panned over to the cage and poor Rey Mysterio was sitting there covered in knee braces, clutching a WrestleMania t-shirt. Give “Free Rey” a new meaning.
(And yes, the actual suggestion here is just “go to Lucha Underground already.”)
3. Return To IWA-MS
Back in 2002, independent promotion IWA-MS pulled off one of the most brilliantly timed and booked matches of all time: Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero vs. CM Punk. In a tiny building. In front of almost nobody. All three of them were caught in limbo for different reasons, and eventually all three of them would make it to (or back to) WWE to become WWE Champion.
The broader idea here would be for Mysterio to tour notable independent promotions and gain back some of that good will lost by years of bad matches, ill-timed Rumble appearances and wrestling in a shirt, but the novelty of him returning to IWA-MS would be too good to pass up. REY MYSTERIO ARRIVES AT THE JAMMERZ ROLLERDOME IN CLARKSVILLE, INDIANA, TO FACE KONGO KONG.
4. Wrestle Samoa Joe
Speaking of touring the independents (and facing Kongo Kong), why not step into a Ring of Honor ring and face wrestling’s other big free agent of the month, Samoa Joe? I’d honestly be shocked if Pro Wrestling Syndicate hadn’t thrown 100 grand at both of them and booked five different versions of it.
It’s one of those “dream matches” nobody specifically dreamed that’d be happening about 10 years too late, but it’d still be something to see.
5. Go To Japan For Any Reason Other Than Joining The Bullet Club
Besides “go to Mexico,” everybody’s first idea for Mysterio (and Joe, frankly) is probably “go to Japan.” New Japan Pro Wrestling is the most popular thing in everybody’s brain right now, and there’s never been a better time to be a gaijin. You go over, get a leather jacket, throw up some Too Sweets and win whichever championships you want.
Giving Mysterio a big prestige run in Japan would be a lot of fun, especially if he wrestled people who’d compliment his style. Mysterio vs. AJ Styles is a thing that should happen, and him wrestling BUSHI when he gets back from injury is a lay-up. For bonus entertainment, book Mysterio vs. Kota Ibushi and have him just stand in the middle of the ring shrugging and yelling “WHAT’S HAPPENING” while Ibushi flips around.
6. Make A Billion Dollars At WrestleCon
Yes, Disco Inferno is going to be there. Dude, I know.
The most obvious thing for Mysterio to do with his first month of freedom from a financial standpoint is hitting up WrestleCon, pro wrestling’s most popular and visited convention, wherein people who have no other feasible way to meet Kelly Kelly or The Boogeyman put down way too much money for way too little an interaction. Don’t get me wrong, I’m there every year, and yes, I paid way too much money to meet Freight Train. It’s what we do.
Mysterio would instantly be huge business for WrestleCon. Also, his presence would shorten the lines for everybody else, and if I’m gonna drop fifty bucks I’d at least like to meet Disco without a 40 minute wait.
7. Surprise Everyone, Put On His Old WCW Getup And Become An NXT Superstar
If Rhyno and The Brian Kendrick can do it, why can’t Mysterio? Do what all the cool kids are doing and revitalize your career by being part of WWE’s hopeful developmental spring at Full Sail. Can you imagine Rey Mysterio throwing away the past 15+ years and showing up at NXT to wrestle Adrian Neville? Now imagine him in those diamond pants and the mask with nothing but straps in the back. Imagine him dressed as THE PHANTOM. Yeah, you’d be into it.
Once he’s done getting that excited nostalgia love, we can devote a full 60-minutes to him finding and beating the mess out of Sin Cara.
