Rolling Stone has published a new interview with Rey Mysterio, who will be facing Myzteziz in a “dream match” at the upcoming AAA TripleMania event this Sunday. The following are some interview highlights:
Triplemania XXIII will be the first AAA pay-per-view shown in America since your breakout at When Worlds Collide more than 20 years ago. Does it feel like your career has come full circle?
It does. It almost feels surreal. It’s something that I would imagine AAA would have always wanted, and now that it’s taking place, I haven’t been able to talk to the rest of the locker room about it, but I’m extremely excited. This is a very big step to promoting AAA worldwide.
Do you think Triplemania is the next step in reestablishing AAA?
I do. You have to take into consideration that over the past 18 months, AAA has been able to sign three of the top free agents out there. Alberto El Patron, Myzteziz and myself. With all the exposure that we have coming from WWE, our names brought something extraordinary to AAA.
Would you say that was the biggest reason you left WWE?
Family was the biggest reason. If anything, I’ll probably do appearances. I’m not trying to stay busy. I’m trying to enjoy my time at home and be around my kids. I want to vacation. I’m a big family guy. I want to do more with them. That was the primary reason that I stepped away. Opportunities are starting to arise. After 15 years, I didn’t know what was out there. I had been wrestling with WWE all that time and wasn’t focusing on anything outside of that. I’m realizing that there’s a lot of opportunities there. The question is just whether I want to take them.
What did you think of [the Eddie Guerrero] feud? Some found it distasteful, others loved how personal it got.
I really enjoyed it. Eddie was coming up to me with ideas, and Bruce Prichard was helping out as well. For me, I was enjoying my moment in WWE. I was creating a name for myself. I had the opportunity to work with my sons and with one of the all-time greats in Eddie. I believe it was Eddie’s idea to start the feud with one another. It really just had a great premise, and we had so much chemistry. Storyline-wise? I don’t recall many stories being that deep and this emotional. It had its ups and downs, and at the end of the day, you gotta look at it as exciting TV. You have drama, you have excitement, you have all the mixed emotions involved in the feud. As a fan, you just have to look at it that way and enjoy the drama.
You were in the ring when Perro Aguayo Jr. was killed. How hard has it been to move past that?
It was horrible. There’s no moving past it. You can’t leave it behind you. You just have to live with it. You hear stories on the road of terrible things happening in the ring. You never imagine that it would happen to you. It was just like a nightmare. You always imagine the worst. A shoulder injury, a neck injury – you never imagine death. There was nothing we could do. God said it was his time, and it was his time. I was just praying and praying, because it didn’t look good. But you can’t do anything when God says it’s time for you to go.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
