Rey Mysterio Never Had A Chance

[Little Jerry Lawler]

I would venture to say that the majority of you hated Rey Mysterio's first title reign in 2006 for various reasons. Whether it be that he was too small or he got the title because of Eddie's death, it doesn't matter to me. If he didn't get the title, I fully believe he would have won one by now. The only reason I will never criticize him or his reign is because of this: Who else did they have?

Batista was injured.

Orton was suspended two days after Mysterio won the title and had to be "injured" by Angle. Orton went to Raw soon after.

Angle was drafted to ECW at the end of May.

Benoit was feuding with JBL and then he took a sabbatical to heal some injuries.

No one liked Mark Henry during that time so that wasn't even an option.

Booker T got his shot as champion.

Undertaker and Great Khali were feuding at the time.

JBL quitting was time for him to get healthy from his back injuries.

So at the end of the day, it basically had to be Mysterio. I know that he didn't have the greatest reign in the world and that he was beat by Henry and Khali. But that was all that was there and I can't fault him for that. I have seen better wrestlers than Mysterio have worse reigns than he did.

Who is mainly to blame for the failure of Mysterio's title reign?

Was Mysterio simply the only option to be champion and if not, who would you have had take his place?

 

[Ubiquitous]

I believe Mysterio's first reign is on of those good on paper, bad in practice type deals. Now, suffice to say, it helped afterwards, being able to call the guy a former World Champ and lended a lot of credibility to him having matches with bigger main event talent. Whether we like it or not, Mysterio got his title reign at least IN PART to Eddies death. That may not have been the full reason, but I think a lot of people recognized that, couple that with the fact that we had accepted Mysterio as a Cruiserweight for years and boom. After this title reign, it made his future title reigns much more believable. I had a lot less issue with his second reign than his first, although I'm not a fan of his. I don't necessarily think he was the ONLY option though. There was still a lot of viable talent floating around on Raw that they could've traded over to Smackdown or made up some other excuse to have them in World Title contention. I guess in the long run though, at least Mysterio got his moment, which was pretty neat. I really wish they would have done without the "unbelievable" Royal Rumble performance though.

 

[LSN80]

Who is mainly to blame for the failure of Mysterio's title reign?

First off, the storyline leading up to his match with JBL was terrible. I understand the point of it: To make it seem like Mysterio couldn't hang with the bigger guys. Exactly the problem. Instead of building him with some credibility by giving him momentum going into his first title defense, they had him be crushed by Henry, Khali, and Kane.(Before the DQ in the Kane match, anyway) Sure, he was given some credibility by beating JBL at the PPV, and retiring him the following week, but significant damage had already been done.

But following that, there was an opportunity to carry over that momentum. Instead, he was the victim of more bad booking. Him losing to monsters like Henry and Khali was believable and expected, but he couldn't go over Sabu at ONS 2006? ECW got their "feel good" moment with RVD winning the WWE Title, so why not book Mysterio in a hard-fought battle where Mysterio comes out on top? I still fail to see the logic behind an Extreme Rules match ending in a no-contest, especially when the win could have helped Mysterio enormously.

For me, the blame goes to WWE Creative. They pulled the trigger too soon on the "Rey can't beat monsters" storyline. That's fine and good, but this is one that should have been delayed. Let Rey get a few nice Smackdown victories under his belt(I realize he beat Orton in a title defense 2 days later, but that was it), then a nice win at Judgment Day. Couple that with having him go over Sabu at ONS, and instead of a lousy title reign, you have a fairly decent one. He lost too often, and it shot his credibility as champ. Couple that with poor storylines that made him look weak, and his championship reign was doomed to fail.

Was Mysterio simply the only option to be champion and if not, who would you have had take his place?

He wasn't the only option. They didn't have to use Undertaker with Khali. I understand the logic of getting Khali over as a monster. and Undertaker wasn't hurt by it. But if you wanted a champion to actually put momentum behind, Undertaker would have been a far better choice.

Still, I'm sticking with Mysterio. Part of that is my own bias as a Mysterio fan, which I'll gladly admit. I think he was the right choice at the time, he was just dealt a bad hand by creative.

 

[dahvoo]

One of the reasons Mysterio was champion in 2006 was primarily due to Smackdown having a high Hispanic audience demographic at the time. That combined with Eddie's death left a place for Mysterio to fill.

 

[Headman]

At the very least, the timing was bad. I don't think he needed to win the Royal Rumble to get there either. The build was bad and the whole time it looked like they were trying to get Rey out of the match by having him lose his shot only to throw him back into the match. Triple threat main events are annoying enough because building a story that involves three guys isn't easy. So bad timing, bad build, bad booking. And no, I'm not a fan of Rey's, but I found his WWE title tournament win to be more acceptable than his Royal Rumble and WM victories. Hell, you win the Rumble from #2 you're not much of an underdog anyway. I just don't get it.

 

[Raptor93]

I think this is the main problem. See im 18 now so back when this was happening I was stil in primary school and call it marking out which it probs was I was 12 at the time and I was just happy to see my favorite superstar win the title. It was great seeing him go. Now however I see your point about booking and what not, In reflection I don't think rey did terribly but I agree booking was shaby, I mean you'd have to be a real jerico or micheals and the like to look credible after getting beaten that much. Other guys have fallen victim to this kind of bad booking, Swaggar, Bryan looks like he will ect.

 

[mrpops]

Rey winning the rumble and going to mania? Cool! Didnt bother me.

Then i see its Kurt vs Randy vs Rey for the title? Cool! I expect to see kurt or randy win like they rightfully should.

Then Mysterio wins?!?!?!? WTF? *Turns off TV(i literally did as i couldnt believe it and it ruined wrestlemania)*

I have loved mysterio since day one. I loved his build up with the rumble win and going to mania....but i didnt want him to actually win the title especially against Kurt angle(the best wrestler alive).

Thats where WWE fucked up. They fucked up at mania. They shouldve had Rey lose to either kurt/randy and went with the storyline that Rey tried his best but couldnt win the big one. THEN they shouldve continued his push and let him eventually win the title later in the year. That wouldve been 100 times more believable and better for everyone.

But instead we got rey winning, me turning off my tv, me not watching crapdown anymore when their best champions in the last 5 years has been the great khali and rey........

 

[Paralyzer Z]

Rey winning the rumble and going to mania? Cool! Didnt bother me.

Then i see its Kurt vs Randy vs Rey for the title? Cool! I expect to see kurt or randy win like they rightfully should.

Then Mysterio wins?!?!?!? WTF? *Turns off TV(i literally did as i couldnt believe it and it ruined wrestlemania)*

I have loved mysterio since day one. I loved his build up with the rumble win and going to mania....but i didnt want him to actually win the title especially against Kurt angle(the best wrestler alive).

Thats where WWE fucked up. They fucked up at mania. They shouldve had Rey lose to either kurt/randy and went with the storyline that Rey tried his best but couldnt win the big one. THEN they shouldve continued his push and let him eventually win the title later in the year. That wouldve been 100 times more believable and better for everyone.

But instead we got rey winning, me turning off my tv, me not watching crapdown anymore when their best champions in the last 5 years has been the great khali and rey........

Why in the hell would the realization of a dream ruin Wrestlemania?

The whole story behind the match was that Rey was the ultimate underdog, something that got him over in WWE very quickly. As long as the the small individual is being booked believably as an underdog, then it's fine to have him as your world champion. Rey didn't have the best reign, the early parts were good but his last stand against King Booker was very underwhelming to say the least. His title win did what it should have done and give WM a feel good moment that Rey had deserved for so long.

 

[Defekt]

Who is mainly to blame for the failure of Mysterio's title reign?

As you said, his reign was surrounded by bad circumstances. Mysterio didn't have the strongest opponents to work with.

JBL was a great talker, but people were kinda tired of him by this point. And Booker, is a great star, but at the time he was still an upper midcard kinda guy (just as Mysterio was).

It would have been nice if Mysterio had been able to work some PPV matches with Angle to establish himself as a credible champion.

I always liked Mysterio and Booker, but I remember at the time deciding that wasn't a strong enough main event to warrant buying the PPV. It didn't help that Mysterio was champion in one the weakest periods in Smackdown's history. The PPV where he lost the belt (GAB 2006) was a complete disaster.

Was Mysterio simply the only option to be champion and if not, who would you have had take his place?

Nah he wasn't the only option. Kurt Angle didn't jump to ECW until a couple months later. He could have retained at Wrestlemania then started working with Rey.

 

[ezuvgu]

At the time, I thought Mysterio belonged in the Cruiserweight division, since he clearly wasn't a Heavyweight. The way they exploited Eddie Guerrero didn't help either. I was glad when they finally put the title on King Booker. A big part of my dislike for Mysterio's title reign was probably that it was pretty much the end of the Cruiserweight division.

I wasn't happy with the way WWE was treating Orton at the time. Orton won his first World Title at SummerSlam 2004, turned face the following night, and lost the title to Triple H at the very next PPV. Then they announce that Orton would get "no rematch" as long as HHH was champ, presumably to set up HHH VS Orton as the Wrestlemania main event. There was no way Orton was going to get over as a face being pushed like that. As we all know, Batista took Orton's spot, Orton RKOed Stacy Keiber and jobbed to Undertaker, and the Legend Killer didn't win another World title for years.

I would have gone with Orton VS Angle at Wrestlemania 22 after Orton beat Mysterio at No Way Out. Angle could retain if they still wanted to go through with his suspension or (preferably) they could scrap Orton's suspension (for smoking RVD's favorite plant) and just have him win anyway. Either way, Mysterio would get the next shot. I wouldn't have given him the title. If Orton was the champ, Lashley probably should have won KOTR and been pushed as Orton's next challenger. If they go with Angle, they can have him drop the title to King Booker on his way to TNA.

Drafting Angle to the fake ECW was a disaster as Angle was on his way out anyway. He can't hold up physically under the heavy WWE schedule, so his move to TNA in 2006 was pretty much inevitable.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Rey was never worthy of the World Heavyweight Championship. I have said that ever since the title win happened, and I still stand by that opinion. LJL made some valid arguments against other potential options in the opening post, but Rey is still the absolute last guy who should ever hold the World HEAVYWEIGHT Championship. He is NOT a heavyweight! I would even have taken Mark Henry over Rey. The best option would have been Booker. He was the one to defeat Rey in the end anyhow, so he could have just carried the belt the entire time. Yes, he had to become King Booker and win King of the Ring. Or DID he? He could have just stayed Booker and someone else could have won King of the Ring. Someone who might actually have benefitted from it, and they never needed that awful king gimmick. The person to blame for Rey's failed title reign is creative for placing the belt on him in the first place because a cruiserweight has no business holding a heavyweight title. He was never believable in that role.

 

[The Crock]

Rey was never worthy of the World Heavyweight Championship. I have said that ever since the title win happened, and I still stand by that opinion. LJL made some valid arguments against other potential options in the opening post, but Rey is still the absolute last guy who should ever hold the World HEAVYWEIGHT Championship. He is NOT a heavyweight! I would even have taken Mark Henry over Rey. The best option would have been Booker. He was the one to defeat Rey in the end anyhow, so he could have just carried the belt the entire time. Yes, he had to become King Booker and win King of the Ring. Or DID he? He could have just stayed Booker and someone else could have won King of the Ring. Someone who might actually have benefitted from it, and they never needed that awful king gimmick. The person to blame for Rey's failed title reign is creative for placing the belt on him in the first place because a cruiserweight has no business holding a heavyweight title. He was never believable in that role.

That makes me chuckle. Who cares if Rey isn't a heavyweight? He certainly wasn't the first (nor was he the last) cruiserweight to hold the World Heavyweight Championship. Chris Benoit was a cruiserweight, Jeff Hardy is, CM Punk is, Daniel Bryan is, Christian is -- seeing a common theme here? All those guys were World HEAVYWEIGHT Champions. Hell, some of the first ever World Heavyweight Champions, in wrestling in general, were Georg Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch. Hackenschmidt weighed in at 210 pounds, as did Gotch. Both of them would be defined as cruiserweights. I guess they had no place holding the World Heavyweight Championship either, right (even if they were catch wrestling)?

You're clearly taking the name all too literally here. While it is called the World Heavyweight Championship, all that means is that it is one of the promotion's two "main" titles. The United States Championship doesn't have to be defended in the US, nor does an American have to hold it; do you hold it to its name, though? I don't think you do, so I don't see why you hold the World Heavyweight Championship to its name (so strictly). There's no weight limit/minimum and it's just not used the way you're portraying it here. ANY top guy can compete for it. It doesn't matter if he weighs 175 pounds or 350 pounds.

Now, I won't argue that his title reign was great, but I don't see why you'd say he didn't deserve to be World Heavyweight Champion just because of his weight class. Mysterio did whatever he could as World Heavyweight Champion, it just never took off. The lack of good booking did him in, nothing more. Maybe, too many fans looked at his title reign with the same mindset you looked at it with -- never giving him a chance because of his size. I can't pinpoint one problem, but I thought he was a good choice at that point and I still do.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I'm going to have to echo what Crock just said if only because it's so mind-numbingly obvious that, for you to have to be told that, you clearly need to be told blatant information three or four or five times for it to settle in your brain.

Saying "Oh, Rey Mysterio shouldn't have been heavyweight champion when he's not even a heavyweight!" is, at best, a lame joke - I'd give you a pity laugh and soon forget it. That someone would invoke it as a serious argument is nothing short of astonishing. This is a business where the managers decide the best way to decide the champion is to suspend the belt above a fucking ladder. Shit, this is a business where they do the same thing with the custody of children. "Hey, isn't that guy a bit small to be wearing a heavyweight championship belt, hmm?" is where you hit a wall? Give me a break.

The rules of life, ladies and gentlemen! Don't lick your finger and put it in plug sockets; don't talk to strangers; don't put plastic bags over your head; don't say that Rey Mysterio can't hold a heavyweight title because he's not a heavyweight.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Who is mainly to blame for the failure of Mysterio's title reign?

Well, the booking sucked on two levels. The story was never about Rey Mysterio winning a world title, it was about Eddie Guerrero's friend winning the title and dedicating that victory in his name. I mean, we were led to believe that Eddie's spirit was helping Mysterio somehow, like Rey shouting Eddie's name whenever he was in some submission hold or just pointing upwards before hitting his finishers, which seemed both cheesy and classless. Almost as if Mysterio could not have won the title had Eddie not died and inspired him to do so.

After winning the championship, Mysterio was booked like a joke losing matches cleanly to guys like Henry and Khali and being made to look as if he did not even belong in that ring. The Eddie references continued even after his win as I remember him winning a match against Henry by faking being hit by a chair that Chavo handed Henry. He should have ideally been kept away from the superheavyweights at this point.

Was Mysterio simply the only option to be champion and if not, who would you have had take his place?

I think that Kurt Angle would have been a better choice had WWE not been obsessed with a making Smackdown into a weekly episodic Eddie Guerrero tribute show. I would have been really tempted to keep Kurt champion after he turned face after eliminating Henry from that Battle Royale on Smackdown as Angle as face champion was something the fans had not seen in a while. Angle seemed like a fish out of water anyway, a great technical wrestler on a hardcore wrestling show. Angle had also criticized ECW in its initial run when he was there as guest commentator on the show which involved the crucification angle. Also Angle was too big a name to be sent to a C-show.

The best thing would have been to send Mysterio to ECW as the veteran of that brand and keep Angle on Smackdown as its champion. Mysterio had been a big name in ECW and would have contributed to the nostalgia that WWECW was trying to generate.