Rey Mysterio Jr.

[strobogo]

Rey the GAWD, raising Eddie's son as his own and trying to get him over in WWE

[Microstatistics]

I think I need to deep dive into Rey. He might be king of the good match and I can't imagine not ranking him but, aside from Halloween Havoc 97, I'm struggling to find truly great Rey matches. I'm sure they are there but I found acclaimed stuff like Eddie Smackdown, Psychosis GAB, Malenko 96, Smackdown Six, Morrison 2009, Low-Ki 2015 to be merely good to very good. 

 

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, Childs said:

Rey cranked out a vintage performance in that Backlash tag for anyone wondering if he could still go at the highest level. He obviously doesn't do it every week now, but his crispness and timing at age 46 are quite something. I had him in the teens in 2016, and he certainly isn't going any lower than that in 2026. 

Best WWE match Dolph Ziggler and Bobby Roode have ever been in? It has my vote.

[Boss Rock]

2 hours ago, Microstatistics said:

I think I need to deep dive into Rey. He might be king of the good match and I can't imagine not ranking him but, aside from Halloween Havoc 97, I'm struggling to find truly great Rey matches. I'm sure they are there but I found acclaimed stuff like Eddie Smackdown, Psychosis GAB, Malenko 96, Smackdown Six, Morrison 2009, Low-Ki 2015 to be merely good to very good. 

 

Rey is my number 10 right now, but I mostly agree with finding those matches "just" very good. That could bump him a bit lower but he ain't leaving the top 20.

[elliott]

3 hours ago, Microstatistics said:

I think I need to deep dive into Rey. He might be king of the good match and I can't imagine not ranking him but, aside from Halloween Havoc 97, I'm struggling to find truly great Rey matches. I'm sure they are there but I found acclaimed stuff like Eddie Smackdown, Psychosis GAB, Malenko 96, Smackdown Six, Morrison 2009, Low-Ki 2015 to be merely good to very good. 

 

these are the most acclaimed singles matches from Mexico. Interested in what you think about the Psicosis one in particular. 

Rey Mysterio Jr vs Psicosis 9/22/95

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1vRSyBg6yQ

vs Juventud 11/30/94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7nsKSJ08U4

vs Juventud 4/21/95

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxiQxfmFdPI

 

vs Juventud 3/16/96

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Vmp6CvwlY

 

[Tetsujin]

The Jericho matches are excellent, specially the apuestas one. And you should definitely watch him against Billy Kidman at 15/03/99 Nitro, a match I consider a masterpiece in highflying cruiserweight matches. Another very underrated match is vs Taker at Royal Rumble 2010.

[NotJayTabb]

Rey was my #3 last time, and I think he could end up anywhere in my top 10. Even #1, I think he's that good. There's definitely an argument for Rey as the best TV worker ever, he's someone able to totally maximise his window no matter how long and against who, and he's also got to be in the running for best ever babyface. He's not a natural heel, but there were definitely times where unmasked Mysterio worked well as an irritating prick heel in WCW. He's got longevity on his side, even if he's not reaching the consistent heights nowadays. He's got 25 years of goodness under his belt

[Reel]

On 5/18/2021 at 10:01 PM, Microstatistics said:

I think I need to deep dive into Rey. He might be king of the good match and I can't imagine not ranking him but, aside from Halloween Havoc 97, I'm struggling to find truly great Rey matches. I'm sure they are there but I found acclaimed stuff like Eddie Smackdown, Psychosis GAB, Malenko 96, Smackdown Six, Morrison 2009, Low-Ki 2015 to be merely good to very good. 

 

The 2009 Elimination Chamber probably won't show up in a greatest Rey matches list, but he practically wills that match into being great. Also, he and Kidman have a couple of matches with Haas/Benjamin that I think are really great. 

[MichaelZ]

A lot of current WWE is the dregs, but I want to echo the praise for Rey's work vs. Ziggler and Roode at Backlash. I couldn't believe he got me to care about that match and is a worthy addition to his resume.

[KB8]

Rey was my number 16 in 2016 and I'm still happy with that. It's actually been a minute since I've watched any Rey, so if I binged a bunch of his stuff next week he could just as easily shoot into my working top 10. I would probably agree with the idea that he's the best TV match wrestler ever, or at worst he's in the discussion. He had a formula he could plug anyone into for any length of time he had to work with, though that doesn't mean I think he was formulaic in the sense that he was any more repetitive than most wrestlers who worked a million TV matches over the last 20 years. Obviously one of the best babyfaces ever. The AAA and WCW runs had some good stuff and some amazing stuff, though it's been a long time since I watched any of the former. I'd also agree that his best run as a complete worker was in WWE, even though he was by no means some spot monkey scrub before that. The 619, the setup to it, some of the kinda-sorta contrived stuff he did in WWE; none that bothers me. If anything I actually think the way he clearly tried to fit the 619 into his matches in plausible fashion is a feather in his cap. Whether you think those attempts were successful or not is a different story, but I've never bought this idea that he would lazily set that move up or have his opponents lie around for it just because it needed to be a part of his matches (and I don't really blame him specifically for that last part anyway). Rey/Eddie is also one of my personal top 5 match-ups in wrestling history and he gets bonus points for having one of the very best matches in the history of two separate companies with the same wrestler (Eddie gets those bonus points as well). 

 

REY MYSTERIO YOU SHOULD WATCH:

w/El Hijo del Santo, Octagon & La Parka v Blue Panther, Psicosis, Pentagon & Fuerza Guerrera (AAA, 6/18/95)

v Psicosis (AAA, 9/22/95)

v Eddy Guerrero (WCW Halloween Havoc, 10/26/97)

v Kurt Angle (WWE Summerslam, 8/25/02)

v Brock Lesnar (WWE Smackdown!, 12/11/03)

v Eddie Guerrero (WWE Smackdown!, 3/18/04)

v Chavo Guerrero (WWE Great American Bash, 6/27/04)

v Eddie Guerrero (WWE Judgment Day, 5/22/06)

v Eddie Guerrero (WWE Smackdown!, 6/23/05)

w/Batista v MNM (WWE Smackdown!, 12/23/05)

v Mark Henry (WWE Smackdown!, 1/20/06)

v Randy Orton (WWE Smackdown!, 4/7/06)

v JBL (WWE Judgment Day, 5/21/06)

v John Cena (WWE RAW, 7/26/11)

v Low-Ki (JAPW, 11/14/15)

[concrete1992]

I have been trying to figure out how to approach GWE as a whole. My interest in wrestling has waned quite a bit with the pandemic. I haven't latched onto anything quite like I used to. I'm trying to find that groove again though but figuring out that at the very least doing little viewing projects isn't going to get me the results I'm looking for. Going through 1980, the NJPW 80s set, 2005 indies wrestling, I get something out of them but for the purpose of GWE I feel like I haven't been able to watch enough consistently to get a real vibe for a wrestler. Knowing specifically how I feel about Chris Hero in the first half of 2005 is nice and all but we "only" have so long.

So I've decided to dig into the Rey Mysterio comp sitting on my computer that goes from the back-half of 1996 through Q3-ish of 1999. I'm not likely going to be writing big match reviews or anything. Just trying to gather those vibes.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis (WCWSN 7/13/96) - Slimmed-down version of my favorite Rey pairing of the era. For better or worse, you could probably plug a lot of Rey matches in from this era, toss them into my eyes and I would have a hard time differentiating. Doesn't stop them from being endlessly watchable.

Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera (AAA 7/15/96) - Rey gets better at these bigger, more bombastic matches eventually, admittedly with better wrestlers. But between Guerrera busting his whole shins on the guardrail and him already not being a world class wrestler, this was merely okay.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera (WAR 7/20 96) -Toss this into the "endlessly watchable" group.

 Rey Mysterio Jr., Ultimo Dragon, Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka vs. jushin Liger, Gedo, Lion Heart & Juventud Guerrera (WAR 7/21/96) - The match itself mostly stinks cacapoopoo. They managed to make this a slog thanks to giving Jericho a whole buncha time in there. Rey probably takes the biggest bumps in the match, folks leveraging the fact he's the small dude in there. He gets MVP of a not good match with Liger following behind. The more you stray from Rey, the worst a match gets. Point proven.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis (Pro 7/27/96) - Lovely energy. Probably tops the Saturday Night match is this almost entirely sizzle. These matches don't need meat on the bones quite frankly.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko (Pro 8/10/96) - Wild that Rey is going to wrestle later this evening. Man takes some wacky and wild bumps. Dean throwing on holds is the most interesting thing to watch so with this short of the match you wish so much time wasn't dedicated to that. Dean is going to Dean I guess though.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon (Hog Wild 8/10/96) - Ultimo puts in a stinker of a performance, but this was a "you can't stop Rey" sort of match. As long you get an absolute 10/10 bonkers spot like the springboard plancha from the ring to the dirt, a good 15+ feet in the air with the kicker of being at least 6 feet from the ring, then I can't say this match isn't worth your time. There is zero way to slow that one down. You have to really launch yourself to cover that distance. If Ultimo wrestled with any sense of urgency then we might have had a great match on our hands.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon (Nitro 8/12/96) - Made online 15 years after the fact. Give me this Ultimo performance with the big stuff of the Hog Wild match and you got yourselves a humdinger. Here we get Ultimo dialing it up several notches, just going through his Movez at a breakneck pace. That's great! I love just Doing Shit. We miss the cool Rey stuff though and that's a bummer. He's still an all-time bumper so it isn't all-bad, frankly, this match is p good, but a disappointment of what could have been in these two matches.