Rey Mysterio has recalled Vince McMahon asking that he wear his mask when joining WWE despite losing it in a match years earlier.
Mysterio had worn a mask since making his debut in Mexico all the way up to February 1999. Teaming with Konan against Scott Hall and Kevin Nash at Superbrawl IX in a Hair vs. Mask match, the Mexican legends were defeated. This led to Mysterio being unmasked for the first time.
Following the closure of WCW, Mysterio signed with WWE in 2002, debuting in July after a series of vignettes. However, he was once again wearing a mask. Something which was deemed controversial in some quarters as Lucha Libre tradition stipulates that once a wrestler is unmasked, they must remain so.
Speaking to Ryan Satin on Out of Character, Mysterio revealed that it was Vince McMahon who decided that his mask needed to return.
“Prior to coming to WWE, I was in OVW training, which was a week prior to my debut and the office wanted to see the gear I wanted to use. When I showed it to them, I had no mask. They were like, ‘Where is the mask?’ ‘Well, I lost the mask.’ In Lucha Libre, if you lose the mask, you never put it back on. They were like, ‘No, Vince wants you to come back with the mask.’ ‘I’m glad you told me now because it would have sucked if you told me the day of.’ I had an outfit made with the mask and that was history. The mask was a very important piece of my career in WWE. If WCW didn’t market the mask the correct way, I knew Vince would.”
“In Mexico, when I went for the first time with WWE, they didn’t want me to wrestle with the mask on because I had lost it. I had been wrestling with it since I signed with WWE, but they didn’t care. At the end of the night, they were like, ‘it’s cool.'”
After a record-breaking career, Mysterio made history once more at WrestleMania Backlash. Teaming with his son Dominik, the pair became the first father and son team to win WWE tag team gold.
While according to a recent report from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the elder Mysterio is set to face Roman Reigns at WWE Hell In A Cell.
During the June 4th episode of Friday Night SmackDown, the reigning Universal Champion Roman Reigns attacked Rey Mysterio and his son Dominik in an attempt to prevent The Usos from losing consecutive matches to the duo following their unsuccessful SmackDown Tag Title challenge earlier in the night.
WWE also recently confirmed that their annual summer spectacular SummerSlam will break tradition and be held on a Saturday with the event taking place on Saturday 21st of August 2021 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription.