Rey Mysterio On WWE Smackdown Move: “A New Beginning”
Rey Mysterio is a WWE Smackdown superstar again and the legendary luchador has called the move back to the blue brand “a new beginning” for him.
Rey Mysterio is a Smackdown superstar again. When Rey debuted in WWE in the summer of 2002, he was put on the blue brand with his first pay-per-view match coming against Kurt Angle at SummerSlam. In 2006, when Rey won the Royal Rumble and the World Heavyweight Title for the first time, he was on the Smackdown roster. Smackdown is where he has spent most of the last 20 years.
Recently, Rey’s time on Raw hasn’t been fun for the future Hall of Famer. That’s because his son Dominik turned on him at Clash at the Castle and joined The Judgment Day group. That has led to many emotional moments for Rey, who has refused to hit his son even though Dominik has taken joy in attacking his father.
On the October 14th edition of Smackdown, Rey appeared in a backstage segment with WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Rey told Triple H that he couldn’t do it anymore and he wanted to quit. Triple H didn’t want Rey to feel that way, so he encouraged him to talk to Triple H in his office.
In the main event of Smackdown, Rey replaced an injured Karrion Kross in a Fatal 4-Way match with Sheamus, Solo Sikoa and Ricochet. During the match, it was mentioned by announcer Michael Cole that Rey was a member of the Smackdown roster moving forward. Rey managed to win that match to earn an Intercontinental Title match against the dominant champion, GUNTHER.
After Smackdown, Rey was interviewed by Kayla Braxton for WWE Digital on Youtube and she asked if Rey’s discussion with Triple H led to Rey picking up the big win.
“That had a lot to do with it. I’ll tell you what, I came here with my mind set on literally just stepping away from the game. It hurts me to see my son go through what he is going through right now and I just will never fight him. But this opened up my eyes in a different way. This is a new beginning for Rey Mysterio.”
Rey also spoke about his history on Smackdown while adding that it feels good to be back.
“There is a lot of history with Rey Mysterio and SmackDown. From day one in 2002 when I kicked off my career in WWE. But to be back now, to be back alone, and to not feel haunted, to not feel like there is a shadow pushing me and wanting to fight me constantly, that feels good. You don’t know the amount of weight I just took off of my back.”
It should be noted that even though Rey is on Smackdown, the current creative team is not very strict in terms of what wrestlers can appear on a show, so it’s certainly possible that we see Rey on Raw again soon or that The Judgment Day shows up on Smackdown. This could be WWE’s way of keeping Rey and Dominik until perhaps a bigger show like WrestleMania next year.
While the 47-year-old Rey Mysterio will get an Intercontinental Championship match against GUNTHER, no date has been announced as of yet.