Rey Mysterio On Being Unmasked In WCW, How It Hurt His Merchandise Sales

Rey Mysterio was unmasked for the only time in his career in WCW, and he recently looked back at that period and how it both hurt and ultimately helped him. Mysterio was a guest on ImPAULsive and talked about the unmasking that happened in February of 1999 and carried through the end of his time with the company. You can check out some highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On being unmasked in WCW: “WCW was the only time I wrestled without a mask. I really wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t want to go through that phase. Back then, I really protected my face. You never saw me without a mask, and I would always move away from the group when we all traveled together, so they wouldn’t recognize me. But, when I came to WWE, it’s like this a machine that wanted to promote and put my mask out there. That is something WCW never took advantage of. That’s why I came back with my mask.”

On WCW’s period of unmasking lucha stars: “There was a phase in WCW where all luchadors were being unmasked. After Juventud [Guerrera] was unmasked by [Chris] Jericho, they actually wanted to unmask me at Halloween Havoc in 1997 during my match against Eddie [Guerrero]. I fought for it, and they didn’t go through. However, they eventually took it off [two years later at SuperBrawl IX]. In hindsight, I actually think that if they never unmasked me, I wouldn’t have gone through the Giant Killer phase. So, that kinda opened a new territory and gave people a new vision for me to work with bigger talents. In a way, that might have opened the eyes of WWE to eventually say, ‘Oh, we’ve never had a small talent like Rey, but let’s bring him over someday.'”