"I got to wrestle my hero" - Former champion on working with WWE's Rey Mysterio

Rey Mysterio is among the few remaining full-time WWE legends on the roster. He is a former three-time world champion and has numerous accolades in his storied career with the Stamford-based promotion.

Former NXT North American Champion and current AEW Superstar Swerve Strickland recently appeared as a guest on The Cruz Show to discuss a wide variety of subjects.

When asked who his favorite luchador of all time is, Strickland pointed to WWE SmackDown’s Rey Mysterio and spoke about the match they had against each other at an Aro Lucha show in 2018.

“Rey Mysterio easily,” Swerve Strickland said. “I got to wrestle him too in Tennessee, and the day of it was just work. Like I’m just doing my job. And then afterward, I was like, I just wrestled my hero. It’s like you grew up reading comic books, and you got to actually face your favorite comic book in real life. I took the 619; he’s doing the head scissors. [H/T: The Cruz Show]

Strickland further went on to state that not only did he get to wrestle The Biggest Little Man, but the latter walked up to him to say that he was someone the WWE legend wanted to work with for a long time.

“I was like, I feel like I’ve been wrestling you for my whole life because I’ve been watching you for so long. So our bodies just adapted so well, and the chemistry was just there. And the coolest thing was because he was signed with Lucha Underground with us as well at the time. But we never wrestled. So the night of, he was coming up to me and was like, ‘You’re someone I really wanted to wrestle for a long time now. So I’m glad we get to mix it up tonight.’ And that just took me out of it. I could retire the next day and be okay with that.” [H/T: The Cruz Show]

On the June 29 episode of NXT, Strickland defeated Bronson Reed to win the NXT North American Championship, his first and sole title in his WWE career.

You can read more about possible reasons why Rey Mysterio will retire in 2023 here.

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The WWE legend has been busy of late on the Road to WrestleMania 39

Rey Mysterio is currently embroiled in a feud with Karrion Kross on SmackDown. The latter began to create issues between the two and the story is still in its budding stages, albeit a bout between the two could happen in just a few weeks time.

The elder Mysterio of WWE is likely going to wrestle his son at The Show of Shows this year and this would mean that he will have to wrap things up with The Herald of Doomsday prior to Mania.