Arguably a living legend at this point, Rey Mysterio is one of the greatest of all time, an influential cruiserweight style wrestler who helped popularize the high-flying lucha libre style in North America for fans and future wrestlers alike. In WWE, Mysterio proved to be a highly decorated champion, capturing midcard belts as well as top belts like the World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that his first major mainstream exposure would be through World Championship Wrestling.
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Mysterio spent 1996 to 2001 in WCW, where he captured multiple Cruiserweight Championships and put on a classic match with Eddie Guerrero at Halloween Havoc 1997, but there’s also a lot about this run that has gone forgotten with fans. Let’s take a look at some notable but forgotten aspects of Rey’s WCW run.
10 Challenged For The Cruiserweight Title In His Debut
Rey Mysterio entered WCW already having established a reputation, having debuted in 1992 and gaining buzz wrestling for Mexico’s AAA, Japan’s WAR, and America’s ECW. His first-ever match for WCW would be a pretty big deal — a near-18-minute challenge for Dean Malenko’s Cruiserweight Championship at Great American Bash 1996.
The pay-per-view was one of WCW’s stronger efforts, so there was stiff competition, but the bout between babyface high-flyer Mysterio and villainous technical master Malenko still managed to steal the show.
9 Third-Ever Cruiserweight Champion
Rey lost in his first outing against Dean Malenko, but he’d have two additional shots shortly after, the first being another unsuccessful challenge the following night on Monday Nitro. However, at July 1996’s Bash at the Beach, Mysterio put away Psychosis in the classic show-stealing cruiserweight pay-per-view opener, earning another shot at Malenko that would happen the following Monday.
After yet another acclaimed match, Rey Mysterio would finally beat Dean Malenko, becoming the third-ever WCW Cruiserweight Champion after Shinjiro Otani and Malenko — and only a month into his WCW run, to boot.
8 Challenged For The J-Crown
Rey Mysterio’s first run with the Cruiserweight Championship would last 111 days before he dropped the belt back to Dean Malenko in another great effort at Halloween Havoc 1996. But the following month, at World War 3, Mysterio would enjoy another major title match as he challenged Ultimo Dragon for the prestigious J-Crown Championship.
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More than just a title, the J-Crown consisted of eight Junior Heavyweight Titles including IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship, and even the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship. This opening bout would involve Ultimo Dragon dominating Mysterio for nearly 14 minutes before getting the win.
7 Feud With Konnan
Before WCW, Rey Mysterio was a regular tag partner with Konnan throughout 1995 and 1996, but in 1997 the two ended up becoming rivals thanks to Konnan joining the nWo faction. Mysterio made a great babyface opponent for the New World Order, unsuccessfully challenging Syxx for the Cruiserweight Belt on multiple occasions before taking on his former partner Konnan himself.
The rivalry would lead to a Mexican Death Match at Road Wild 1997, which had Konnan beating Mysterio after 10 minutes.
6 LWO Run Led To Unmasking
In 1998, WCW’s various Mexican luchadores would form an nWo-esque stable called Latino World Order, but Mysterio would resist recruitment and fight various members of LWO until he lost a match to leader Eddie Guerrero. Eventually, the nWo itself would take offense to the group’s existence, demanding they ditch the gimmick. Rey Mysterio resisted this, too, leading to a feud with the faction.
This resulted in a match at SuperBrawl 9 wherein Konnan and Mysterio took on Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, with Rey’s mask on the line along with Miss Elizabeth’s hair. Thanks to various heel shenanigans, Mysterio would eat the pin in this match and immediately remove his mask.
5 Title Match With Flair
On the 3/22/1999 episode of Monday Nitro, WCW held a “random” drawing to determine who on the roster would get a title shot at WCW World Champion Ric Flair later in the night. El Dandy ended up winning the draw, but an injury forced him to nominate someone else to take his place.
Dandy chose Rey Mysterio, who went up against Flair for nearly eight minutes until Arn Anderson yanked the referee out of the ring, drawing a disqualification. Notably, this would be Rey’s only title shot and his only match against Ric Flair — and also the only time he threw Flair into a pool.
4 No Limit Soldier
In 1999, WCW brought in rapper Master P, who formed a stable called No Limit Soldiers with Swoll, 4x4, Chase, and Brad Anderson, adding Konnan and Rey Mysterio to the group for a little star power. The group’s major feud would be with the West Texas Rednecks, a country singer-themed heel stable whose sensibilities were way more in line with the average southern WCW fan.
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The group had one notable match against the Rednecks, which served as a bright spot on the otherwise-reviled Bash at the Beach 1999. It was a four-on-four elimination tag match, which ended with Rey Mysterio eliminating Curt Hennig in the final moments for the win.
3 Heel Turn
WCW fans likely know that Konnan and Mysterio stuck together after the No Limit Soldiers disbanded, forming the Filthy Animals with Eddie Guerrero, Juventud Guerrera, Billy Kidman and others. But one aspect that’s gone forgotten here is that the group were initially heels, which meant that perennial babyface Rey Mysterio was a bad guy for what is the first and only time in his career.
They even became part of the New Blood faction during their feud against the Millionaire’s Club in that infamously abortive angle.
2 Tag Team Champion
Rey Mysterio shined best in the cruiserweight division, where he was a five-time Cruiserweight Champion. But that ultimately overshadowed his efforts in the tag team division, where he’d become a three-time champion. His first win would be in March 1999 — one week after that title shot at Ric Flair — as he and Billy Kidman beat Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko for the tag belts in a real barn-burner.
He would win the belt two other times with his fellow Filthy Animals, once with Konnan and once with Juventud Guerrera.
1 Cruiserweight Tag Team Champion
In February 2001 — about a month before the company went under, WCW announced a new title, the Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship, with Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo winning a tournament to become the first champions at the Greed PPV. Eight days later came the last episode of Nitro, the “Night of Champions,” during which Rey Mysterio and Billy Kidman defeated the inaugural champions to become the new Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions.
It was an emotional, bittersweet night, with Mysterio and Kidman’s win a nice tribute to their accomplishments in the cruiserweight division, and the end of an era.
