Rey Mysterio Recalls the Toughest Era of His Life, Talks Goals Left to Accomplish in Wrestling

– Rey Mysterio was a guest on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast on Monday and discussed his life and career, immigration and more. Highlights are below courtesy of WZ:

On still competing at forty-three: “When they ask you, ‘Rey, what do you have left to do in you career? You’ve pretty much done a little bit of everything or you could say you’ve done it all,’ but for me I would say that my final dream come true as a wrestler and as a father is to be able to perform in there with my son, so I could say, ‘Now, I’ve done it all. Now, this is it.’ And, it’s gonna happen, God willing.”

On the toughest period in his life: “I would have to say, as a kid, I had plenty of time to enjoy my childhood. I played out in the streets ‘til night. We did trick or treating at nighttime and we just had so much fun. Living in San Diego at a very young age and having to move to Tijuana, Mexico at probably about the age of 11 or 12, I’d have to say that my toughest years as a kid is having to learn the sport of wrestling at such a young age and being literally the only kid in the class, just because I had a bit of a hall pass because my uncle was the coach or the trainer, so he would let me stick around, but you wouldn’t see kids my age training at that time. Of course, the youngest kid after me was probably 18 years old. You had an 11-12 year old kid in there, who is literally a kid and the next person after that is a teenager, so I went through a lot of beat downs and phases in my life. I didn’t really understand that this sport was gonna be this hard. Sometimes I would just leave the ring crying waiting to get some kind of attention from my uncle and I would be in the gym or the class with everybody there. If I would get hit too hard and get the wind knocked out of me, just like any other kid, you start crying and kinda pull aside. I do recall this and waiting for my uncle to come and say, ‘Hey, are you OK? Come back in the ring. That’s alright. It’s OK,’ but I would never get that type of attention and that just made me tougher mentally much much tougher and physically much tougher. It did [make me grow up faster].”

On having to grow up faster than others: “Being with older people at a very young age, you learn much faster. You see things that you’re not accustomed to seeing. Did it take away from my childhood? No, not really because I had two separate lives. I went to school in San Diego and I crossed the border every morning to go to school, so I enjoyed that part of my childhood there and then while other kids were playing football, or going to soccer or baseball practice after school, I went home to Tijuana. I had to take a trolley or the bus or my mom would pick me up. I would do my homework and do what I had to do and I had to go to wrestling school. Wrestling school was usually between 7PM ‘til about 10PM, so I had two separate lives at a very young age.”

On being born in the U.S., immigration, and the current immigration system under Trump:“Three of my brothers were born in Tijuana. Me being the last sibling of the family, at the time, was when the parenting saw the benefits of having children in the U.S., so I was that last child that was born in Chula Vista, California. Based off of that, my parents and brothers were able to become U.S. citizens because of my parent’s struggle to have me in the U.S. which is pretty much what is happening now, from my lifetime that I was born 43 years ago up until this day. With all the issues that have been going on with President Trump and the struggle of Hispanic families coming into the U.S. and having their kids here, it’s actually a struggle. It’s really really a struggle. Maybe it’s more of a struggle now, than it was back then. Back then, the struggle was to get across; now the struggle is those that are here are being pushed out. I’m terrible at following the political side of the U.S. and what happens because it really saddens me seeing young kids, young children pulled away from their parents. I can’t even imagine, if I ever got pulled away from my parents or if my kids were pulled away from me at a very young age. I would go fricking crazy and to be completely useless because there is nothing you can do. It just really breaks my heart that we see such a bad time with Hispanic families in this lifetime. It breaks my heart. It really does break my heart with everything that’s going on. Right here in Tijuana with border crossing into San Diego, they’ve closed the border this week maybe two or three times. Families can’t get in and I don’t know, if they’ve closed it going out, but I know they’ve closed it coming in, so it’s getting more serious every time. I don’t know what’s going to happen with that.”

On if Mexico is currently in a bad state: “No. It has it’s stages, but for people to be saying that Mexico is horrible or bad, no. I go in and out at least once a month, so it all depends where you’re at and who you hang out with. I grew up in Tijuana. I lived in Mexico City. I traveled all around the Republic of Mexico, so there’s territories that are bad, but it’s always been like that and there are places here in the U.S. that are pretty bad. It’s like anywhere else in the world. You have certain areas. Yes, the government in Mexico is pretty bad, but it’s always been up and down, so it’s not like it’s shocking to all of us because we’ve had that around the world, not just in Mexico and not just in the U.S. Things happen in the political side of the world.”