Dominik Mysterio isn’t shy about where he thinks he stands in WWE.
The 27-year-old son of pro wrestling legend Rey Mysterio considers himself more than one of the company’s top heels as he is at the center of arguably WWE’s hottest story.
“I am the most hated. I am the bad guy,” Mysterio said in a Zoom interview.
WWE crowds have booed him mercilessly since his heel turn saw him join The Judgment Day faction in September 2022, unable to lift a microphone without an entire arena drowning him out with their audible hate.
Mysterio only added to that at this year’s SummerSlam with the kiss heard around the wrestling world with Liv Morgan, the rival of his previous on-screen love interest Rhea Ripley as the two women have been locked in a feud for the Women’s World championship. It was the payoff to months and months of storytelling toward a shakeup of The Judgment Day faction.
4
“I think I’m one of the only people, if not the only person to turn heel while already being the heel,” Mysterio said. “It’s kind of just pouring more gasoline on the fire at that point. It’s just really cool. I’m just blessed for all the opportunities and I’m thankful for them. I’m just doing me. They hate me because I’m pretty.”
The story will see its next chapter when Mysterio and Morgan face off against Ripley and fellow former Judgment Day member Damian Priest at Bash in Berlin from Uber Arena on Saturday (1 p.m., Peaco*ck).
A victory for him and Morgan would send the ultimate message in Mysterio’s mind.
Ripley’s last two pinfall losses are to Morgan and he hopes for bragging rights against the former World Heavyweight champion Priest.
“Once we beat Damian and Rhea, because I know Liv can beat Rhea and I know I can beat Damian, it’s just a matter of how and when,” Mysterio said. “But there’s no reason for them to talk anymore. If we beat them Saturday, they should shut the f–k up and just move on with their lives. Done.”
The story is rich in history between the players both during their time in Judgment Day and before it
Finn Balor and Priest’s animosity goes back to their match at NXT’s In Your House premium live event in 2020. Ripley betrayed Morgan when they were a tag team in 2022 and attacked her in July 2023 to be the storyline reason for her missing time with injury.
4
Mysterio is pleased to see all of this history – including Ripley and Priest jockeying for who was Judgment Day’s leader – all pay off.
“Then all of us realizing Damian and Rhea had gotten ahead of themselves so we had to take out the trash,” he said. “There is a lot of history there between all of us and I think it’s really cool to see it all come together.”
The storyline has pushed some of the recent boundaries in WWE, which is shifting away from being strictly PG to an edgier product.
Morgan and Ripley haven’t been shy about the occasional revealing outfit. Morgan invited Mysterio back to her hotel room during the story (that was as far as it went) and had him suggestively straddled on the ground on multiple occasions.
But the company hasn’t crossed the line into the even more mature visuals fans may have seen during its Attitude Era in the late ’90s and Mysterio believes that restraint will only add more fan intrigue.
“People still want that edginess we would get back in the Attitude Era but the innuendos and the little things here and there (we do) is more than enough because people want to keep tuning back in to see if we do ever cross that and see if does happen,” Mysterio said. “Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Things can still happen. We’ll see what the future holds.”
In the process, Mysterio is enjoying a very different on‐screen dynamic with Morgan than with Ripley, who played a much more heavy‐handed and protective but still appreciative partner he called “Mami.” He described what we saw as “a one‐sided” and “abusive” relationship.
Morgan on the other hand has brought him his favorite meal of chicken tenders and a Playstation 5 to Judgment Day’s locker room during the storyline and has been much more of the appeasing and overly doting girlfriend type.
“I think with Rhea it was almost like I had to get permission as far as doing this, I had to get her permission to do that,” Mysterio said. “If I wanted Mami to hold me, I had to ask for permission. As you see, I don’t have to do that with Liv. We’re very free with each other, comfortable. We know the history there and we kind of clicked right away. Our connection kind of just happened and we’ll see where it goes. We’re brand new so we are kind of just testing the waters but it’s been great.”
4
How Ripley and Mysterio’s relationship was portrayed on TV came with similarities to the love angle between Chyna and Eddie Guerrero from 2000.
Guerrero, who died in 2005, was a close friend of Rey Mysterio and Dominik was in the middle of a paternity angle with them in 2005.
Some of it has manifested itself unintentionally while other things, like Mysterio giving Ripley a black rose as he tried to make up with her after return from injury in July, are mirror images of things Chyna and Guerrero did on screen.
Keep up with the most important sports news
Sign up for Starting Lineup for the biggest stories.
Thanks for signing up
“It’s really cool, especially the fact that it’s Eddie and Chyna and what strong similarities we have without even realizing we were kind of doing it, “Mysterio said. “Obviously, I grew out my mullet to kind of like pay homage to Eddie and all this stuff. I didn’t realize it was going to end up like this and I was gonna end up looking more like him when I had it all in and just the way I cut it and stuff.
“Even Rhea, her mannerisms are very similar to Chyna and my mannerisms with Eddie so it’s really cool to see the side by sides and the pictures of it.”
While Mysterio has made it a point to be true to his character and the storyline as best he can, he revealed on Logan Paul’s podcast two weeks ago that his wife, Marie Juliette, does a good job of separating his work from their real life. The couple, who have known each other since they were 14, married in March.
When asked by The Post about their dynamic, Mysterio called her the best for being OK with everything that comes with being a professional wrestler, including his days training in Calgary and spending “months apart” while he was living in Florida at one point. To them, “this is really nothing.”
“We understand each other, our communication is just on point,” said Mysterio, who also credited the professionalism of his fellow WWE stars. “Whenever something is about to happen or I get wind of something, she always gets a heads up and she’s always fully aware.
“When I come home, it’s not like we sit there and talk about work. It’s like, ‘Hey, how was work.’ ‘Oh, It was good,’ this and that, and it’s alright. We move on from it because we have a life to live. She’s obviously the best and the fact that she’s cool with all of this makes my life so much easier.”
It is part of the other side of him we don’t see on screen as often now because of the vitriol Mysterio receives from the WWE audience.
That’s why he was “genuinely surprised” when he was requested by a young fan as his Make-A-Wish last Monday, which he was more than happy to deliver on
“When someone told me, ‘hey, you have a Make-A-Wish,’ I was like, ‘Someone asked for me?’” Mysterio said. “It was a little something special and something I don’t get to do too often.”
One of the things he hadn’t done before was beat his father in a match, which has now happened twice with help from Morgan. Dominik now considers himself the greatest Mysterio of all time.
After the first win, Rey threw out a challenge during a ComicBook.com interview, for his son to put his mustache or mullet on the line against his mask in a match – something Dominik is more than willing to do.
Dominik just isn’t sure his “deadbeat dad’ will live up to his end now that he’s beaten him.
“People go their whole career being like, ‘I want to beat Rey Mysterio.’ If there’s one guy I got to beat it’s I got to be Rey Mysterio,” he said. “They push through their whole careers to get to this one goal and I did it in less than my whole career and I feel pretty accomplished, and the fact that I did it all on my own makes me feel a little better as well.”
4
He hopes to gain another type of bragging rights after his and Morgan’s match against Ripley and Priest in Berlin on Saturday. It would “send the ultimate message.”
“He would have no room to talk if he lost to me,” Mysterio said. “If I beat Damian, I don’t even want to hear a single word out of him again. That’s it.”
