Rey Mysterio recently appeared as a guest on Corey Graves’ WWE After The Bell podcast for an in-depth interview promoting WrestleMania Goes Hollywood this weekend. During the discussion, Mysterio shared his feelings on going into the WWE Hall of Fame:
“It’s so surreal. These are the moments that you wish that one day would happen when you’re no longer part of this business when you retired, hoping that, man I truly hope that one day I become part of the legendary Hall of Fame, the guys that paved the way for us, and here I am in mid-career going full throttle and I was offered this grand treasure that we all seek. I’m completely blown away. I don’t think it’ll kick in until after I retire, or after this whole week of WrestleMania, and I have time to just chill and relax and just soak it all in.”
How he feels about tonight’s Hall of Fame:
“Emotional to the extent where I was talking to my wife last night. I was saying, ‘What did we do to receive the life that we have? What was it that made us be the ones?’ Without this successful career that I’ve had over the past 34 years, we wouldn’t be where we are now. My kids wouldn’t be where they are now. When you put it all in perspective, you think, wow, this was teamwork. Teamwork from day one with my wife and myself, you know, with her being at my first match and now she’s getting ready to sit ringside and view my grand award of becoming part of the Hall of Fame.”
His wife, Angie, being at his first match:
“That is correct. So we met. I always tell her she took advantage of me because she was 17 and I was 15 at the time. It’s just such a special connection that we have from day one. I remember inviting her to my first show and she was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll go.’ We were just friends at the time and that kind of just bonded. She had never been to a wrestling match before. She thought that wrestling back then was like low class. But after all, you know, she was there. She enjoyed it. She saw my first match. She’s seen my growth from a different perspective than anyone else, which is crazy. She did tell me again last night that she was so proud of my accomplishments and she saw me grow from day one up until now, and she’s so freaking proud of what I’ve accomplished. I always tell her, ‘It’s not I, or me, it’s us, what we’ve accomplished together.'”
On his friendship with Konnan:
“With Konnan, it’s funny. We met when I was 12 years old, roughly. He walked into this gym in Tijuana where I was training, where my uncle was leading a class and was taking students under his wing. Konnan showed up with another friend of his. He was just jacked, straight out of the Navy. It looked like he could have really said he was a bodybuilder. He was just so freakin’ big, but we bonded right away. It was crazy. He takes off first to Mexico, becomes a huge megastar, and the first thing he does is when they get ready to kick off this new promotion, he calls me and Psicosis over to come over and continue with our wrestling careers. Back then, if you didn’t know anyone that could connect you to a major promotion, or that could connect you with promoters to get work, you weren’t gonna go anywhere. I would have been a good or a great wrestling kid from San Diego that wrestles in Tijuana every weekend and became a local superstar, possibly. But my life changed after Konnan opened up doors, not only in Mexico, but in ECW, and then in WCW. So I owe a lot of my success to Konnan. I’ve always said thank God for this career, this beautiful, enormous career that I’ve had, but next to God, I thank Konnan for opening up these doors for me.”
You can listen to the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
