This past weekend at WWE’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Rey Mysterio had his eyeball extracted by Seth Rollins.
The 45-year-old legend is believed to be working for WWE without a contract. WWE reportedly declined Mysterio’s request for a pay raise. The eyeball angle will keep Mysterio off television while the two sides continue negotiating.
Should he decide against re-signing with WWE, it looks like Rey Mysterio will have interest from All Elite Wrestling. AEW Executive Vice President Cody recently spoke to Sports Illustrated this week and heaped praise on his WrestleMania 27 opponent.
Cody says his father and brother helped mold his career, but Rey Mysterio also made a huge impact on his development as a worker.
“The one thing Chris Jericho and I can agree on is that there is nobody greater than Rey Mysterio,” Cody said about Mysterio. “There are people I give a lot of credit for helping me build my career, and they’re not always the obvious ones. Dusty and Dustin, of course they were involved, but they’re family. Rey Mysterio, I don’t even know if he remembers, but he changed my whole career. Rey, Randy Orton and Big Show are three people that put a great deal of work into carving out my skills as a wrestler. I didn’t know nearly as much as they did, and I still don’t. They were very important to me.”
Rey Mysterio is in the later stage of his in-ring career. However, he still has tremendous star power and can put on world-class matches that defy his age.
It’s worth noting that Mysterio wrestled in the main event of All In, the highly successful independent wrestling event promoted by Cody and The Bucks that served as the genesis for AEW.
The full interview with Cody can be read at Sports Illustrated.