Rey Mysterio is one of the most famous masked wrestlers in the world today, and he’s worn a mask for the vast majority of his career.
However, there was a time during his WCW run when he lost his mask and he worked without it.
Mysterio and the mast have become synonymous over the years, and he recently opened up about how he found out he was losing the mask in WCW during an appearance on the Apter Chat.
According to the former WWE Champion, the idea of him losing his mask started as a rumor, and he eventually gave in because he knew fighting to keep it wouldn’t change the situation.
“It all started as a rumor for me to wrestle without the mask and, if I’m not mistaken, Scott Hall was the one that kept on saying ‘you gotta baby face’, ‘you’re a pretty mf’. He goes ‘you don’t need the mask, look at that face sells’, so that began to get bigger and bigger and escalated up until Halloween Havoc in 1997 where Eric [Bischoff] had me thinking that I was going to lose the mask that night. I was paranoid because the mask is everything to me. It’s my legacy. It’s my heritage. It’s something that I wear with honor and respect for my uncle. It’s what wanted me to become a luchador. Being able to grow up as a fan and see my uncle wrestle in Tijuana. Witnessing him losing his mask at one point in his career. He broke down crying thinking that it’s not going to be the same. For this rumor to become reality. Then later the night came of the orders of me having to lose the mask on that pay-per-view against Scott and Kevin [Nash]. At the time I said there’s nothing I can do at this point. I fought and I tried and there’s just no sense of pursuing something that’s not going to happen. So I gave in. I had a contract. I had the obligations. So I gave into it and made the best out of it.”
Do you think WCW made a mistake when they took the mask off of Mysterio? Sound off in the comments below.
H/T Wrestling Inc
