Rey Mysterio won his second-ever World Heavyweight Championship at Fatal Four Way. Given the way that Mysterio has been an Internet darling since his days with WCW, you'd think that there'd be much rejoicing and proclamations of hope that his second reign would be far better booked than the first one was, right? Right?Yeah, about that.
I've been noticing quite a bit of Mysterio backlash ever since his push was seemingly used to exploit Eddie Guerrero's death and nothing else. His character was becoming increasingly pandering to children, and a lot of people, myself included, resented how he was easily able to dominate guys like Kane and Mike Knox despite the size difference and the constant billing as an underdog (much in the same way everyone had a problem with John Cena "overcoming the odds" every week despite him clearly being the dominant party in the feud against Big Show). Admittedly, I wasn't and still am not a huge fan of Mysterio's out-of-the-ring persona. It does seem pandering to me, but what his saving grace is is that he's a phenomenal wrestler. Going by my small corner of the Internet that I spend most of my time, A1 Wrestling, I thought I was part of the consensus.
Surprisingly to me, I'm not. Rey Mysterio, a guy who has been involved in some of the best matches in the last two years despite having two shot knees, has been turned on by the Internet Wrestling Community as a worker too. It's madness, I tell you. Utter madness.
Let's get the problems I have with Mysterio out in the open first before I start gushing, because I don't think Mysterio is perfect by any means. I absolutely hate that they contrive spots to get guys leaning over the ring ropes in every match so he can hit the 619, which is a cool move, but kind of a bunkily-set-up finisher. I also think he gets favorable booking way too much for a guy his size and has less trouble than he should be having against the aforementioned Kanes and Knoxes of the world.
Okay, now that that's out of the way... I think this criticism of Mysterio as a bad worker is utterly insane. Absolutely and utterly insane even. Gary Busey levels of insane. I could go on forever, but I really don't want to waste Blogger's bandwidth. These criticisms come from one of two sources it seems. The first is from his finisher. The second is that he's no longer nearly as "good" as he was in WCW/pre-WCW. Let's address both.
The first criticism is utter bullshit because there's way, way, way more to a wrestler than the quality of his finisher. John Cena's done maybe a handful of
The second criticism is faulty because of the fact that he has no knees anymore. I can't stress this enough. It's not that he was necessarily better back then. Maybe he was, but for those who want pre-WCW Mysterio hopping around like a jumping bean, it's not going to happen because he's physically unable to do it. However, where I would wholeheartedly disagree with the haters is that his work has gotten substantially worse because of that fact. It really hasn't. It's just metamorphosed.
This is setting up to be another MOVEZ~! vs. other stuff that makes a match good argument. But really, other than the set-ups to the 619 and Rey having lost a step on his high-flying moves (again, expected because his KNEES ARE SHOT TO HOLY HELL), does he really have a lack of impressive moves? I honestly don't think so. Despite him not flying like he did in 1996, he's still better than half the combined rosters of the major American feds at performing high-flying moves that actually look credible as opposed to just pretty. So what if he can't do a hurracanrana anymore? He's compensating elsewhere. Plus he still has an array of nice lucha pin combinations he busts out.
Additionally, the guy still bumps. He still sells. He makes any match he's in look better than it might have any right to be with an average replacement. In the last two years, he's had great matches with Chris Jericho, CM Punk, Batista, the Undertaker, Luke Gallows, Kane, Knox and Dolph Ziggler. You can't tell me that Rey needed to be carried in every single one of them, given that Undertaker and Kane are in the same boat he is, and that Rey needed to bump to make the matches with Kane, Knox and especially Batista look as good as they were.
As far as out-of-ring, in-character issues go, or any rumors of him having backstage pull that he uses in his favor, well, I say fire when ready, Ridley. However, I will politely ask you to pump those brakes, son, when talking about his in-ring ability. Rey Mysterio is still one of the top-flight workers in the company and in the whole country. To denigrate his abilities because you hate him for some other reason is pretty dishonest.
Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!
