Rey Mysterio recently looked back at his time during the Monday Night Wars in the 1990s on the "No-Contest Wrestling" podcast. The masked superstar shared how he and other wrestlers from Mexico approached the business differently than many American wrestlers.
During the Monday Night Wars, WWE and WCW were fighting for television ratings every week. Behind the scenes, wrestlers often had to play politics to get better storylines and more screen time. But Mysterio says he didn't get caught up in that game.
"At that time, it was kind of crazy 'cause at the time I wasn't too invested in trying to figure out how politics worked and what you needed to do to get a push, how political you needed to be to be heard or seen. We were just going out there and having good matches like we would do in Mexico, like we didn't change anything. We would just go out there and crush it every night and I think that within itself kind of put lucha libre on the map," Mysterio explained.
The wrestling legend focused on what he knew best: putting on great matches. He and other Mexican wrestlers brought their high-flying lucha libre style to American television. They didn't worry about backstage politics or trying to impress the right people. Instead, they let their performances speak for themselves.
Eventually, some wrestlers started speaking up for the smaller talent. Mysterio credits wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Chris Jericho for helping open doors.
"You know, then, of course we started to see Eddie and Malenko and Jericho like push for the rights of smaller talent to be seen and that's kind of when it all, you know, just started to flow and they gave us a little bit more exposure," he said.
Mysterio also revealed that retirement is really close for the legendary performer.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit the "No-Contest Wrestling" podcast and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for transcription.
