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Topic	B8's Greatest Wrestlers Ever Ranking
muddersmilk 07/21/20 6:44:01 PM #421:	Speaking of Dominic... 16. Rey Mysterio Jr. Score: 150 # of Lists: 11 Highest Vote: War, 2nd Writeup: Eddv Rey reps out as perhaps the greatest underdog of all time. WWE for certain hasnt been able to resist heaping that title upon him ad nauseum and giving Rey the matching booking. Poor Rey had the dubious distinction of having the act of being booked to lose a lot as champion get renamed "pulling a Rey" due to the way they treated him during his main event level run. But this is really par for the course for Rey who managed to get over in America again and again based on almost nothing but raw talent and skill. He didn't invent high flying wrestling, but the argument can be made that he has perfected it. You can go back and watch old Rey Mysterio matches when he first came to WCW. Schiavone, Heenan and Dusty sit there stupefied trying to call the action, unable to keep up with either his style or his rapid fire delivery or his seemingly off the cuff creativity in how he would deliver his moves. At his athletic peak, he was thrilling audiences who had absolutely no frame of reference for what Lucha was and making them fans of the style and getting the whole division and company over. Tony Schiavone uttered a phrase during one of these early bouts that has stuck with me - "any one of these maneuvers, if done by anyone else would have a name and be their finisher, but for Rey Mysterio it's just one of the hundreds of maneuvers he can unleash at a given time". I can recall watching Rey's matches and feeling a sense of awe and reverence at not knowing what he would do next. They would make a practice of wheeling out the nerdy Mike Tenay just to give the audience someone who could give them some sense of the action. Years and years later, even now, when people discuss the WCW cruiserweight division, sure they're talking about Malenko and Jericho and Juventud but mostly? They're talking about Rey. He got the cruiserweight style popular and then, perhaps more impressively he shattered the need in the US to sequester that style behind a weight class. Every match in existence now features a tope suicida and that simply would not be the case if not for Rey. I think you can successfully make the argument that Rey has influenced the style and delivery of the actual wrestling we see in front of our eyes more than any other wrestler on this list. And for good reason, the night the nWo was formed? All the smarky nerds could talk about was the clinic he put on with Psychosis instead. And he did all of this with bookers and management that, mostly didn't get him. Didn't understand what was happening in the ring or what it was about Rey that was getting so popular. Yet that popularity alone got Rey opportunities, even in WCW he was presented as a world title challenger at one point. Russo insisted he de-mask again proving he was as ill-suited to understanding Rey as Heenan was. Commentary on his matches often elicited racist quips from Heenan or Dusty or later on Lawler. It didn't matter that none of them got it. The audience got it. People like Scott Hall would mock them while the entire next generation of wrestlers studied and copied him hoping to thrill audiences even a fraction as well as Rey. To the point that when Rey made his WWE debut in 2003, he was an instant sensation as WWE loyalists got their first look at what a real high flier looked like and rode that to a certain height as a main event fixture. The only knock on him, really, is that WWE never quite pulled the trigger on him and yet...he returned to AAA and Lucha Underground in the 2010s as a broken down shell of himself and still put even the modern luchadors not named Flamita and Rey Fenix to shame. While he may not have the pedigree of championships and booking opportunities he deserved, the fact that literally everyone in WWE now has a top rope move and the ability to do a tope rings out as a more tangible legacy than anything more decorated champions have to show for themselves. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5zehbt; Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psychosis (July 7, 1996) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vhkur; Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero (October 26, 1997) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6nij5u; Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle (August 25, 2002) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xylbtx; Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (June 28, 2009) --- Maniac64 <cite>muddersmilk posted [p:942411948] in B8's Great... [t:78774080]...</cite> <quote>Speaking of Dominic... 16. Rey Mysterio Jr. Score: 150 # of Lists: 11 Highest Vote: War, 2nd Writeup: Eddv Rey reps out as perhaps the greatest underdog of all time. WWE for certain hasnt been able to resist heaping that title upon him ad nauseum and giving Rey the matching booking. Poor Rey had the dubious distinction of having the act of being booked to lose a lot as champion get renamed "pulling a Rey" due to the way they treated him during his main event level run. But this is really par for the course for Rey who managed to get over in America again and again based on almost nothing but raw talent and skill. He didn't invent high flying wrestling, but the argument can be made that he has perfected it. You can go back and watch old Rey Mysterio matches when he first came to WCW. Schiavone, Heenan and Dusty sit there stupefied trying to call the action, unable to keep up with either his style or his rapid fire delivery or his seemingly off the cuff creativity in how he would deliver his moves. At his athletic peak, he was thrilling audiences who had absolutely no frame of reference for what Lucha was and making them fans of the style and getting the whole division and company over. Tony Schiavone uttered a phrase during one of these early bouts that has stuck with me - "any one of these maneuvers, if done by anyone else would have a name and be their finisher, but for Rey Mysterio it's just one of the hundreds of maneuvers he can unleash at a given time". I can recall watching Rey's matches and feeling a sense of awe and reverence at not knowing what he would do next. They would make a practice of wheeling out the nerdy Mike Tenay just to give the audience someone who could give them some sense of the action. Years and years later, even now, when people discuss the WCW cruiserweight division, sure they're talking about Malenko and Jericho and Juventud but mostly? They're talking about Rey. He got the cruiserweight style popular and then, perhaps more impressively he shattered the need in the US to sequester that style behind a weight class. Every match in existence now features a tope suicida and that simply would not be the case if not for Rey. I think you can successfully make the argument that Rey has influenced the style and delivery of the actual wrestling we see in front of our eyes more than any other wrestler on this list. And for good reason, the night the nWo was formed? All the smarky nerds could talk about was the clinic he put on with Psychosis instead. And he did all of this with bookers and management that, mostly didn't get him. Didn't understand what was happening in the ring or what it was about Rey that was getting so popular. Yet that popularity alone got Rey opportunities, even in WCW he was presented as a world title challenger at one point. Russo insisted he de-mask again proving he was as ill-suited to understanding Rey as Heenan was. Commentary on his matches often elicited racist quips from Heenan or Dusty or later on Lawler. It didn't matter that none of them got it. The audience got it. People like Scott Hall would mock them while the entire next generation of wrestlers studied and copied him hoping to thrill audiences even a fraction as well as Rey. To the point that when Rey made his WWE debut in 2003, he was an instant sensation as WWE loyalists got their first look at what a real high flier looked like and rode that to a certain height as a main event fixture. The only knock on him, really, is that WWE never quite pulled the trigger on him and yet...he returned to AAA and Lucha Underground in the 2010s as a broken down shell of himself and still put even the modern luchadors not named Flamita and Rey Fenix to shame. While he may not have the pedigree of championships and booking opportunities he deserved, the fact that literally everyone in WWE now has a top rope move and the ability to do a tope rings out as a more tangible legacy than anything more decorated champions have to show for themselves. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5zehbt; Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psychosis (July 7, 1996) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vhkur; Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero (October 26, 1997) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6nij5u; Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle (August 25, 2002) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xylbtx; Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho (June 28, 2009) --- Maniac64</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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