Rey Mysterio Talks How He Got Interested In Wrestling, And How It Felt To Always Be “The Smallest”

Rey Mysterio was a recent guest on Lilian Garcia's "Making Their Way to the Ring" podcast, revealing that his uncle treated him differently while training, and sharing his feelings about his own son pursuing professional wrestling. You can watch the entire interview in the video above, or download the podcast version on iTunes.

A youth spent back and forth between Tijuana and the US: 

"My mom and I had to cross the border every morning, so she can go to her part-time job and I can go to school…We would literally leave the house, depending on what day it was, sometimes we'd leave at 5am.

"There were times that the traffic was just way too heavy. I would take my naps in the car when my mom saw that it was getting too late and I would be late to school, she would wake me up and she would tell me, you're going to have to cross (the border) walking today. That happened numerous times."

How he discovered wrestling: 

"I loved staying with my uncle, my mom's younger brother, Rey Mysterio. So I would spend my off times with him. That's when I found out about wrestling. That's when I found out about the mask, Lucha libre, what Lucha libre was. It kind of opened up this imaginary world for me, where there was a lot of super heroes that wore masks, but they were humans.

Dealing with his size growing up: 

"I was always the smallest and the youngest. Now probably not the youngest, but the smallest in weight class. That's something that's always haunted me. Well, for many years. Not now. But it was always an obstacle in my career."

Training with his uncle: 

"He was definitely harder on me. He liked to make an example out of me. I think that's because the rest of the class knew who I was, knew we were related. Anytime that he used me as an example everybody else just panicked. They said, wow, that's his blood. What's going to happen to us?"

His son wanting to pursue wrestling: 

"He said, I want to see if you can start training me. I was like, wow! That's awesome. Deep down inside I wanted him to say that. This is a very tough sport. But I don't think it's tougher, I think football is much riskier than wrestling."