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Best Rey Jr. Opponent


elliott

Best Rey Jr Opponent?  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was Rey Jr's best Opponent?



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I participated in best WWF/E match ever and best WCW match ever polls on another forum a few years back, and the best WWF/E match poll on smarkschoice a few years before that, and I think on all my ballots I had no less than four Rey/Eddie matches. At this point I think I'd have their Halloween Havoc match #1 on my WCW ballot (I had it top 5 at the time) and their 6/05 Smackdown match would be a serious #1 contender for my WWF list (I had that somewhere around my top 10 at the time). It's right up there with Tenryu/Hashimoto, Ishikawa/Ikeda and Lawler/Dundee as my favourite recurring match-up in wrestling. Of course that was my pick.

 

I like lots of stuff he did with the other guys as well, though. I haven't watched anything he did in singles with Psicosis or Juvi in Mexico in almost a decade, but the ECW matches were still fun the last time I saw them and last month I watched a six minute Rey/Juvi match from a September '97 Nitro that was pretty great.

 

Haven't seen any of the Jericho series from WWE since it happened, but I remember it being really good. I don't remember anything they did in WCW being blow away great, but maybe I missed something. I thought they worked well together in WWE, though.

 

I've only seen a few of the Punk matches, but I'm pretty sure I liked them all. There were two or three from 2010 that I liked a lot.

 

This is more of a "Rey was HIS best opponent as opposed to the other way around" kind of thing, but Rey/Angle was always really good. Angle was a super solid base for him and he got to throw Rey around like a jock bully. By the end of Angle's WWE run Rey was about the only guy I was interested in seeing him up against.

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Chavo Jr. is another underrated Rey opponent. They had a match on a 2001 WCW PPV that was easily one of the better matches the company had in its last couple years (not an astronomically high bar, but still). Their No Way Out 2004 match was pretty great and the Great American Bash match the same year was outstanding. I don't remember much about the '06 feud now other than the daft storyline running through it, but I don't imagine it sucked. They must've had something decent.

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I think it's Eddy, though Rey is probably the best opponent for a number of guys. I've been watching BOLA over the last week, and I took a break from it to watch the Rey vs. Puma match from Lucha Underground. Fucking Rey is still a good bit better than any of the touted flyers in BOLA. That guy is amazing.

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It's Eddy for me and it isn't really close.

 

Yep. Obviously Halloween Havoc 97 is their masterpiece and is an all time classic but they had other good stuff in WCW too. The 2004 match is excellent. The 2005 series is really great, even when the booking went to shit. Other stuff in between too.

 

 

 

I think it's Eddy, though Rey is probably the best opponent for a number of guys.

 

Agree with this.

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I do think it is Eddy, but I did want to give props to the people who voted for Psicosis. Psic & Rey very much grew up together and had their first great singles matches together. I know the Juventud rivalry got a lot of love at the time and when folks were looking back at Rey's early career in the early 2000s talking about how mid 90s Rey was at his peak.

 

The things people praised about the Juventud stuff is the sort of thing that I roll my eyes at now. It is awesome that those guys were major tape watchers and loved Japanese wrestling and I know a lot of folks loved the way they combined lucha with dragon suplexes, powerbombs, UWF mat work they watched their favorites do. But I feel like those guys wanted to desperately to be Misawa & Kobashi and that manifested itself in the matches.I hate the use the El-P criticism of the Joe/Kobashi match and accuse them of cosplaying their favorites. But that is totally the vibe I get from Rey vs Juve matches. They were less about finding themselves and more about trying to be these other guys they really liked (which really...is not a terrible trait in young workers, I just felt Juventud took Rey in the wrong direction from where he was going with Psic.).

 

I don't think his matches with Psicosis fell into the same trap. There is some of that but I don't find it as blatant as the Juve matches. The series with Psicosis feels more like two young workers who are able to do amazing things but are still finding themselves and figuring out how to be great luchadores. Juventud matches feels like luchadores trying to play All Japan workers. I can see digging that aspect of Rey/Juve, I used to myself, but I think something like Rey Jr vs Santo is a much better match than any of the Juventud matches I've recently rewatched. I found more variety in the Psic matches as well. I might just not really like Juventud anymore and just haven't realized it yet. That is very much in play.

 

I think Childs makes a really cool point about Rey being the best opponent for a lot of people and that may actually be a cool idea for a thread. Some of my absolute favorite Rey matches are actually of the one off variety and not necessarily big long running feuds. If I made a top 10 Rey Jr matches list, I'd have the 1997 match and the Smackdown 2005 Eddy matches without question. I'd have a Psicosis match, probably that one that Tim loves so much but maybe even Bash at the Beach too, which I have always adored. Then its a kind of weird list. I think the John Cena & Low-Ki matches are phenomenal and both strong candidates for my favorite Rey Jr match. I promised Jimmy Redman I would watch the Rey vs Morrison match from 2009 that she loves and that is a stunningly great match. I guess my point is basically, man that Rey Jr guy was amazing. I'm so glad he finished 7th in GWE.

 

One quick little thing I had to mention because I'm probably the only person that feels this way. I wouldn't say he's the best or even 2nd best opponent for Rey, but I have always loved the Rey Jr vs Dean Malenko matchup. I know, I know. I get all of the criticisms, about Dean "Grounding him too much" but I think they're pretty silly. The Great American Bash match specifically is such an amazing debut match for Rey and a big part of that is because Dean grounded him and worked holds. Rey was actually a good mat worker I thought and Dean's entire gimmick was basically "mat wrestler." So OBVIOUSLY he would try and ground this little super quick dude who hits the most wicked high spots in wrestling. That's just good psychology. I'm not sure if they hit the Bash level again in their future matches (I haven't watched the other ones in a long time) but I always dug the matchup because of the dichotomy of styles.

 

I can't really imagine praising the Dragon match from WW3 and then criticizing Malenko for "grounding Rey too much." No, Rey hit some awesome highspots. And those two were smart enough to know that Rey probably shouldn't blow through all of his "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" level spots on the first night in the promotion. He gave just enough of a taste.

 

Their Nitro match where Dean hits the super gut buster (its the next night, right?) was the first time I saw Rey Jr wrestle and so I've always really liked that match as well, just not at the level of the Bash match.

 

Anyway, yeah dudes. Rey Mysterio Jr. Its too bad we never got an extended feud with Danielson.

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I like the Havoc match more than the GAB match for Malenko-Rey, though I (of course) would enjoy a rewatch of both, though I don't like their Nitro match at MGM Studios that much. Am beginning to lose my mind over not having seen the Ki match, unless it's on Highspots or something. Love the Cena match. Such a great argument against Rey not having credible ground offense, those kicks are fantastic.

 

I think that the ECW 2/3 falls match with Psic holds up wonderfully and is just BRUTAL. Rey's closest thing to an epic apuestas brawl, excluding something like Judgment Day '06.

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I remember some of the WWE ppv matches with Eddie being a little disappointing. I think there were two all time great matches between the two(HH and the classic from SD) but for consistency I went Jericho. The last time I watched their match from The Bash I thought it was the best WWE match of 2009(a year full of great SD matches).

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Not worth being on the list, but as long as we're veering off into other guys that had really good matches with Rey, I'd put Cody Rhodes up there. Its the only match from WM27 I think I'd ever want to rewatch, though, I'll admit to not watching anything from that show since it happened.

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