Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Did Rey Mysterio Re-Mask in WWE?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals.

Through Hel Stryer and brimstone . . . it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Brandon has a secret identity:

Why did they let Rey Misterio Jr. come to WWE with the mask but not Juvie and Psicosis?

I’m not 100% sure who “they” is in this question, but I’ll try to address it as best I can.

First off, for anyone who may be unaware, the tradition in lucha libre is, when a wrestler loses his mask in the ring, he never puts it back on. He might start wearing a different mask and doing a different gimmick, but he never puts the original mask back on.

This isn’t just tradition, though. It’s actually enforced by governmental entities. Mexico has lucha libre commissions, similar to the state athletic commissions that used to regulate pro wrestling in many U.S. states before the total death of kayfabe. Lucha commissions actively prevent wrestlers from remasking after losing a lucha de apuestas match. Why? Mask matches are huge money south of the border, and fans would feel ripped off if they plunked down their hard-earned money to see that stipulation being fulfilled only for it to be walked back a couple of weeks or months later. In other words, the commissions are trying to protect the interests of the fans.

Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis, and Juventud Guerrera all lost their masks in matches promoted by WCW and, at least initially, they didn’t plan to re-mask.

In fact, when Rey initially signed with WWE, he didn’t plan to wear the hood there. However, when he was told that Vince McMahon wanted him to, he put the mask back on. This is a story that he’s told on both Ryan Satin and Kurt Angle’s podcasts.

Misterio didn’t have to worry about what the lucha commission said about him wearing a mask in WWE, because it’s a U.S.-based company, and the lucha commissions doesn’t have a say about what happens in the States. In fact, Psicosis actually lost his mask in Mexico a month before he lost it in WCW, and nobody stopped him from wearing the thing in the States during that 30-day period.

That being said, when Misterio wrestled on a WWE show in Mexico for the first time, he actually DID go to the commission and received special permission to wrestle with the hood in Mexico. Why did they approve his special request? I’ve never seen that question unequivocally answered, but I think everybody can figure this out for themselves. WWE is big business, and the commissions aren’t going to do anything it incur their wrath.

So, what about Juventud and Psicosis? Why didn’t they wear masks in WWE?

Based on the foregoing, the answer simply appears to be that they weren’t considered necessary for their gimmicks. If WWE had wanted them to be masked, it easily could have been done.

Tyler from Winnipeg is the master and the ruler of the provinces:

How many times did Sid vs Bret Hart happen on cable or PPV?

There are only three such Bret Hart/Sid Vicious one-on-one matches that I’m aware of.

The first was on December 15, 1996 at the twelfth In Your House pay per view, subtitled “It’s Time,” from West Palm Beach, Florida. Sid came into that bout as WWF Champion and successfully retained when Bret collided with Shawn Michaels, who had been at ringside on color commentary but got up on the apron to jaw jack with the Hitman. Steve Austin, Davey Boy Smith, and Owen Hart also ran in on the match at various points.

Match number two was on Monday Night Raw from Nashville, Tennessee on February 17, 1997. This was another WWF Championship match, this time with Bret as champ and Sid as challenger. It looked like the Hitman was going to retain with the Sharpshooter, but, while the hold was applied, Steve Austin made an appearance and hit Hart with a chair, allowing Sid to come back with a powerbomb and recapture the title. This helped set up both Austin/Hart and Sid/Undertaker at that year’s Wrestlemania XII.

Speaking of setting up Wrestlemania XII, the third and final cable or PPV match between the two men occurred on March 17, 1997 from Syracuse, New York, six days before that pay per view. Sid was defending his WWF Championship against Hart in a steel cage. Both the Undertaker and Steve Austin interfered, though in this instance Austin was trying to help Bret and Taker was trying to help Sid, because each of the interlopers wanted their Wrestlemania match to be a championship match. Ultimately, Undertaker and Sid prevailed, with the Dead Man swinging the cage door into Hart’s face as he was trying to escape, allowing Sid to climb out and retain the title. This lead to the Hitman’s infamous profanity-lacked worked-shoot tirade which perfectly set the table for the double turn involving himself and Austin less than a week later.

Uzoma is rebuilding:

While it was too little, too late, was WCW getting their act together in 2001?

In terms of presenting a quality product: Yes, there were definite improvements. They were running a long-term storyline in which Scott Steiner was slowly taking out all the top babyfaces, which didn’t have a chance to pay off before the company closed but was clearly building to a grand return for all of them. They were focusing on building new stars as well, whether it was the push of Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak in the tag team division or Shane Helms and Jason Jett in the cruiserweight division. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome were being allowed to do their thing with a minimum of goofy interference.

That being said, even though the booking was better, the business aspects of the company never really turned around – though they probably didn’t have sufficient time to do so before the WWF buyout occurred.

Night Wolf the Wise is scouting talent:

With all the recent call ups/signings to WWE, I wanted to ask you where you see the following wrestlers on the card. Meaning Main eventer, mid card, jobber, etc.

1. Trick Williams – Trick’s got the chops to be a top guy. He’s smooth in the ring for where his level of experience is, but, moreso than his in-ring performance, I think he’s got potential based on his recent confrontation with Randy Orton. Yes, you could tell he was a less experienced performer during that segment, but he didn’t feel out of place and there was enough raw talent and good instinct there that I felt he would definitely be able to hang with main eventers once he gets more reps in.

2. Je’von Evans – He’s athletic. He’s got a good look. However, he doesn’t seem to have the same intangible “it” factor that guys like Trick and Oba Femi do. If he ever breaks out in to the main events, I suspect it will be after a long time marinating in the midcard, similar to a Kofi Kingston. However, he does enough spectacular spots that I’ll also bet on him consistently being more over than his push.

3. Oba Femi – This guy has been wrestling for less than four years, and I am legitimately excited about the possibility of seeing him step into the ring with Brock Lesnar. He’s miles ahead of where most other wrestlers with the same level of experience are. Though he’s still a bit behind the absolute best guys in the game today, if he were to be put into the WWE Title picture tomorrow you would not hear one word of complaint from me.

4. Royce Keys – Even though he’s been with a nationally televised promotion for five or six years, I feel like I have the least data to evaluate Royce on simply because AEW is so inconsistent with how it features guys like him. He’d do a couple of impressive things and then vanish for months. In any event, he’s certainly got the body and some base level talent, but I think the jury is out on whether he can carry himself as a singles act. I’m cautiously optimistic that he can at least make it to the upper midcard, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he stalls out there, either.

5. Lash Legend – Great look and that’s about it. Her rapid ascension, along with that of Tiffany Stratton, shows that despite the fact that women’s wrestling has made great strides in the amount of air time it gets, the standards for the actual talent of the performers are still so much lower than they are on the men’s side of the roster – and I’m talking about both the promotion’s standards and the standards of a certain segment of the fanbase. Barring some unexpectedly quick gains, I think she’s the most likely person on this list to wash out of wrestling altogether.

6. Jordynne Grace – She’s the total package, and I don’t understand why she’s not a champion right now. I would’ve had her bypass developmental completely and dumped her right at the top of the division.

7. Matt Cardona – Zack Ryder was a cute opening match comedy gimmick. He would have worked very well occupying the same space as the Godfather or Scotty 2 Hotty did in their respective eras. However, there were a bunch of fans online who mistook the ability to be successful in that space for the ability to be successful higher up the card, and as a result you had an obnoxiously loud segment of the fanbase calling for him to be pushed beyond his skill set. Now he’s not particularly improved but back because he got a good pop in what otherwise would have been a one-off match. I suspect he’ll do nothing significant and be gone inside a year, similar to the weird WWE returns that guys like Marty Jannetty and Tatanka got well after their primes.

You can’t make HBK’s Smile with some guy’s hand in your mouth:

Are there any known instances of wrestlers refusing to take the mandible claw from Mankind due to hygiene concerns?

Not that I’m aware of.

Drop and give OZ twenty:

At some point in the last few years, Sgt Slaughter seems to have shifted the story of him winning the belt from Warrior as being an on-the-fly outcome during the match, due to Warrior being so loopy from Savage’s scepter shot that he was legit unable to kick out as planned, and Sarge being surprised at winning it. I’ve seen the Sarge tell this story in multiple shoot interviews.

This is clearly nonsense, with multiple people saying that Hogan-Warrior didn’t do the business that was hoped, so the plan was to get the belt back on Hogan via a transitional champion, rather than a rematch. But I’ve never seen a single person refute Sarge’s claim.

The question is, have you ever seen anyone call out or contradict the Sarge regarding this story, and if not, why do you think this particular piece of personal kayfabe has remained unchallenged?

No, I’ve not heard anybody explicitly call this out, even though as you say, it’s obviously fabricated. I think the reason that Sarge has never been challenged on it is that it’s flown under the radar. When you hear wrestlers telling stories of this nature, it tends to be in “friendly” interviews with people who either don’t know that much about wrestling or are going to be hesitant to contradict the celebrity they have on the other end of the line (or both). It’s not as though Slaughter tells his old war stories in venues where he’s getting grilled by hard-hitting journalists.

Bryan is bringing the beef:

Who was the better pure athletic big man in their prime: Vader or The Big Show? I don’t mean ring psychology, moves, or workrate – just pure athleticism. Who impressed you more? I honestly can’t decide.

If we’re just talking about athleticism, I think I have to go with the Big Show because, even though both guys were hugely impressive, Show during his prime worked a lot heavier schedule. Once he jumped to the WWF, Show would be wrestling roughly four days a week, year-round, with almost all of those matches being singles matches during big stretches of his career. Meanwhile, if you look at Vader, he’s primarily working in the Japanese system where his schedule will be a tour of roughly six weeks, followed by three or four weeks off, then another tour of roughly six weeks. Plus, during those tours, all of the matches except for a couple are going to be tag team matches or even six mans where he’s not taking the full brunt of the damage.

I could probably name three to five times as many great Vader matches than I could great Big Show matches, but if we’re talking about the two men as pure athletes, Show proved that, over the long haul, he had a lot more in the tank from an endurance standpoint.

Memphis B-Rad seems like a completely different person:

A lot of older wrestlers have two distinct careers: pre-WWE and sanitized WWE. Because the E controls the narrative, many wrestlers are misremembered by today’s fans. I’m thinking of guys like Jerry Lawler, Jimmy Hart, and Kamala, to name a few. Back in Memphis, they were nothing like what most fans know of them. Kamala in particular was scary AF, not a belly-slapping goofball. Who are the top 5-10 wrestlers that you think are misremembered by today’s fans?

I feel like you missed the single biggest example of this phenomenon that bets mentioned all the time in this sort of discussion:

THE BUSHWHACKERS

Outside of the WWF/WWE, Luke Williams and Butch Miller were the Sheepherders, a sadistic tag team that engaged in bloody, hardcore brawls and barbed wire matches. Then, in the WWF, they licked the heads of seven-year-old kids.

Tony Anthony is another one. If you take a look at what “The Dirty White Boy” was doing in the early 1990s, particularly in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, he was a believable top guy in a successful regional promotion. He may not have been able to main event in a national group, but he could’ve done well in the upper midcard. How do people remember him thanks to his WWF run? He’s TL Hopper, the wrestling plumber.

Though you wouldn’t mistake him for a Vader or a Bam Bam Bigelow in terms of in-ring performance, during his career in Canada, Makhan Singh established himself as a capable big man heel and played a solid bully for smaller wrestlers like Owen Hart and the British Bulldogs. Then, the WWF turned him into Bastion Booger, where he wasn’t even meant to be a good wrestler, and that’s all fans recall.

There’s an extent to which Pat Patterson and Jerry Brisco belong on this list as well. Yes, if you talk to wrestling fans of a certain age, they will still be recalled as legends of the mat game and rightfully so – especially in terms of Patterson. However, to an entire generation of fans, they are nothing more than Vince McMahon’s comedic “stooges” from the late 1990s.

Wrestling Fan Since 1977 lives in the last house on the right:

What was the reason the Freebirds came in to the WWF and then quickly vanished?

They pissed off Andre the Giant. Seriously.

At the time, the Freebirds were pretty heavy partiers and had a reputation for being a bit obnoxious backstage. Not long after their WWF debut, they ran afoul of Andre at a show, and he was essentially one of the most powerful guys in the company. His dissatisfaction with them proved fatal to their careers, to the point that some observers refer to the incident as Andre “firing” the Freebirds, even though he technically would not have had the ability to do so.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.