Seth Rollins Explains Why He Always Saw Dominik Mysterio As A Heel
As the man that wrestled Dominik Mysterio in his first televised match, Seth Rollins was the perfect person to judge the young wrestler’s potential.
Dominik’s first major storyline saw him wrestle Seth Rollins several times throughout 2020. At the time Dominik was still a babyface playing the role of Rey Mysterio’s son. He was saddled with that gimmick for around two years before turning on his father and siding with The Judgment Day.
In the year or so since Dominik aligned with that stable he has made incredible improvements as a character. No matter how many times he loses or no matter how much he behaves like a flaky coward without any credibility, his reactions do not change; he still gets enormous reactions and is quite possibly the biggest heel in WWE right now.
Rollins, for his part, isn’t surprised at Dominik Mysterio’s recent success. Speaking on Logan Paul’s ImPAULsive podcast, Seth Rollins said that Dominik was miscast as a babyface as an adult and was born to play a villain in wrestling.
“It was wonderful to see where he was then, he was a good guy and babyface, straight white meat, ‘I’m Rey Mysterio’s kid.’ For me, I knew. I was sitting at a live event not long ago and he was getting boo’d out of the building and Hurricane Helms was sitting with me, ‘If you had told me six months ago he was going to be a top heel in the business, would you believe it?’ Yes. I could see this coming.
He’s not built to be a babyface. He’s Rey Mysterio’s kid. People think he’s getting handed everything being Rey’s kid. It’s so easy to want to hate nepotistic jerks. It’s so easy to hate people digging off the family name. They’re going to love him at first, but eventually, it’s all going to come back around.
For him to be able to feel [the boos], take that in, and apply it every single week and trust the people around him telling him what to do, to do that turn it into what it is now where he can’t pick up a microphone to say words because they will boo him out of the building.”
h/t Fightful for the transcription