Jim Cornette has discussed the attributes that he thinks make Rey Mysterio a great wrestler despite the former WWE Champion’s lack of size.
Cornette was answering questions on his Cornette’s Drive-Thru podcast when a fan asked just what precisely made Rey Mysterio so great. Cornette answered saying that Mysterio achieved greatness because he was the exception rather than the rule when it comes to wrestling.
Jim Cornette explained:
“There’s an exception to everything that proves the rule and usually the exception is wildly talented in whatever they’re doing that nobody else could get away with and it just looks like people copying them afterwards. Rey Mysterio because of his unique balance and precision with the sh*t that he could do and the fact that he grew up from a young age in and around wrestling families and the inside working of the business. So he understood how you don’t just do sh*t because a monkey could just do sh*t. But you do it with emotion and passion and for a reason and a time.”
“You get sympathy on yourself when you’re that small against all these big guys. But then you come out with this incredible maneuver and there was the flashy outfit. The only place Rey Mysterio didn’t get over was WCW when they took his mask off. As a matter of fact, they sent him to Cincinnati and that’s when we were doing Les Thatcher’s HWA TV down here at our building. He was in Danny [Davis]’s office and I was looking at Rey Mysterio with no mask on. Bald-headed and looked twelve years old, [he] looked like a twelve-year-old child. I’m like ‘what the f*ck have they done.'”
Cornette continued:
“Sure enough as soon as he puts his mask back on and f*cking becomes Rey Mysterio again, he’s over again. […] Rey Mysterio got the business mentally because he was around it and in it for so long. He understood the psychology of it. He was an amazing athlete and acrobat but also because of the character he created. I hate to use that word but Rey Mysterio is a character. He was a superhero, being Hispanic didn’t hurt at a time when the population here was increasing.”
“Everything worked for him. But Rey doesn’t just go out and have goofy Lucha matches and fall on his ass fifty percent of the times that he tries something. When Rey Mysterio did f*ck up it was unusual and not something that happened every day. He’s the difference that proves if everybody else tries to do that then they’re just imitating the guy that really did it, and that guy got over the best with it.”
Jim Cornette also shared his thoughts on Brock Lesnar from when he worked with him in Ohio Valley Wrestling. Lesnar is one of two people, Cornette says, who doesn’t have a good word to say about his time in OVW.
Credit: Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru