Recently on E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness, Edge and Christian caught up with fellow former world champion Rey Mysterio, Jr, which was conducted before Mysterio’s recent Grade One partial left biceps tear. Among other things, Mysterio talked about his son Dominic’s ongoing pro wrestling instruction, his own training as an underage luchador, crossing the US/Mexico border to go to school, and his indelible brushstrokes on the genre of professional wrestling.
According to Mysterio, his son Dominic is currently receiving a dose of lethal learning from ROH’s Jay Lethal. After Dominic kicks out of training at Tampa Bay Pro Wrestling, Mysterio would like to send Dominic to Lance ‘Thunder’ Storm’s pro wrestling school in the capital of Canadian pro wrestling, Calgary, Alberta.
“Yeah, my son, Dominic is training in wrestling and working. He’s up training with Jay Lethal right now.” Mysterio later added, “I’m going to have him train as much as he can in different countries. Right now he’s training with Jay. I want to get him out with Lance in Calgary [Canada]. Is he in Calgary? Yeah, uh huh. And eventually, if I can get him to Japan and to Europe. And the final touch would be the Mexican side. That’s when I get ahold of him and we do one-on-ones, so eventually, when it’s time to tap out and hang up the mask, I would love to leave him set, so he can take over the name and the brand and take it to the next level.”
Apparently, Mysterio began his pro wrestling training at the age of 15 years old. Mysterio’s mother, the sister of Rey Misterio, Sr., had to sign a release for her son to train.
“You can only imagine my mother signing, ‘yeah, go ahead, son. Do your thing.’ Again, it [has] been in our family because of my uncle and my mom was a huge wrestling fan. She used to go see my uncle wrestle every week, but then after I started to break in the business, it was harder for her to see her son wrestle, but at the end of the day, they signed! Yes. Overall, they knew my commitment. They knew how much I loved being around my uncle. And they knew that I was taking my training seriously.” Mysterio explained, “even though I was young, they granted me permission to be able to wrestle. And, of course, my uncle put in a word for me. My uncle told her that he would be looking out for me. And at the time, my uncle didn’t have any kids, so I was like the adopted son.”
Also during the podcast, Mysterio described how he would travel to San Diego, California to attend school while living in Tijuana, Mexico.
“I was at home for maybe two hours throughout the day. That was after school, just to do my homework. And then, once it was wrestling school time, I would leave the house, which was only a couple of blocks away. I would walk to the gym, spend my whole time there up until, say, 11 o’clock at night. I would come home, shower, go to bed and then wake up in the morning, five, 5:30 a.m. to cross the border to go to school every morning, Monday through Friday.” Mysterio continued, “that’s very common out here in San Diego. I was born and raised in San Diego and lived in San Diego until the age of about eight. After the age of eight, my parents decided to move to Tijuana to make it easier for my father because of his work, so now, instead of my father going to Tijuana every day for the first eight years I was born in California, it was the other way around. Now, my mother and I had to go across the border coming into San Diego, so she can drop me off at school and she could go to work. And then sometimes she would wait for me after school and when she couldn’t, I would take a bus to the border, and she would pick me up on the Mexican side.”
On the subject of opening the metaphorical door for performers of smaller stature, Mysterio claimed that Konnan deserves a lot of credit for bringing lucha libre to the American market.
“I actually give a lot of credit to Konnan for opening the doors for me along my way.” Mysterio stated, “and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it till my last day: I could’ve been so talented, but if I hadn’t gotten introduced to the right people or the right companies at the right time, none of this would’ve happened. Somebody always in a way has to give you an invitation or open the doors for you, so you can eventually be seen and they can appreciate your talent, so Konnan was one of those guys, not just my mentor, but Psicosis, Juventud [Guerrera], a lot of guys that were a part of that WCW era where lucha libre became very big in WCW. But, again, I say if I didn’t have Konnan there recommending me or saying, ‘hey, you’ve got to bring this kid in, man. I really like him. Rey Mysterio, he’s really good. Wait till you see him.’ That kind of opened a lot of doors for me and I took advantage of the opportunity. He’d do the recommendation and I would come in, do the work, and, at the end of the day, it paid off.”
Mysterio admitted that he has only recently understood his impact on pro wrestling from working a new generation of innovators who have been inspired by ‘The Ultimate Underdog’.
“Maybe within the last five years,” Mysterio considered. “I want to say, you start getting comments here and there at signings or events where you get local wrestlers coming up to you and they tell you that they’re training, that they’re wrestling, if I have any advice because they were inspired by watching me wrestle and Psicosis, and our generation, so that’s when it kind of hits you not as strong as later down the road when I run into an AJ [Styles], when I do run into a Will Ospreay, when I do run into Amazing Red, Ricochet, who just signed with WWE. After being able to wrestle with these guys and them expressing how much of an influence I was to their career, and how without me being in the position that I was throughout the years, that they are now having the opportunities to be able to perform at the level that they always wanted to. That’s when it hits you and you go, ‘wow’. I mean, it was a game-changer, it was a door-opener for all the smaller weight, the guys that at another time thought, ‘oh, I could never be a part of this.’ And then, seeing me, ‘oh, if he can do it, I can do it!’ So that’s when it really hits and it makes you feel good, man. There’s no better feeling than to know that you’ve given others the opportunity to perform at the highest level possible.”
BOOYAKA! If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness with a H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcription.
Source: E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness
