5/17/03

Rey Mysterio is feeling much better these days. He returned to SmackDown! this week after missing the last two due to a bad accident at April’s Backlash pay-per-view which could’ve been much worse.

When the Big Show picked up Mysterio and the stretcher board on which he was lying, and swung him into the steel ring post – that was risky enough. But then Show dropped Mysterio, who came crashing down on his head – his arms tied to the stretcher board, unable to break the fall.

“After I got whacked against the pole, I remember that I went down at an angle,” Mysterio told WWE.com. “My head and my right wrist hit first. It was like, ‘Boom!’ And then I was knocked out – I just went black.”

But Mysterio said he did not suffer a concussion, and that he slowly regained consciousness.

“I couldn’t hear people, just loud noise, and couldn’t put everything together,” he said.

He said his back was in pain from the collision with the pole, but “at the time, most of my focus was on my head,” he said. “I landed on my face completely. My hands were tied, so I really couldn’t stop my landing. I went straight down on my face. When my face hit the ground, my mask actually slid up slightly, so my eyesight was a little bit blurry. I could see clearly with just my right eye. I landed on the left part of my forehead. I was in pain. It was my wrist, my head (and) my neck”

Immediately after Mysterio was dropped, trainers and officials backstage scrambled to check on him, fearing the worst.

“I remember seeing paramedics, a couple of the wrestlers (and) Larry (Heck), the trainer,” Mysterio said. “I was just rushed off to the hospital. I felt claustrophobic because my hands, waist and feet were tied up. I said, ‘I need to move.’ They said, ‘We can’t let you move because we don’t know if you have anything broken.’”

Mysterio had a CAT Scan and about 20 X-rays, from his waist all the way up, at the hospital. Everything came back negative; he checked out a few hours later and flew home to San Diego the next morning.

Even though nothing was broken, Mysterio was in pain for an entire week, he said.

“My face was bruised up,” he said. “My left eye was black, and the top of my forehead was skinned off – like a mat burn. My wrist was bad. I couldn’t even put pressure on it. My back was sore. The right-hand side of my neck – I guess when I landed, it pushed my weight to the side – running from my ear all the way down to my trap was sore and tight.

I went to get therapy the whole week.”

Several Superstars called Mysterio throughout the week to check on him. Mysterio said Edge was the first Superstar to call. Edge told WWE.com that he thought the entire scenario – Mysterio getting swung into a pole – was too risky even if Mysterio wouldn’t have been dropped, and especially because so many Superstars are injured already.

In retrospect, Mysterio agrees.

“I think it probably was taking too high of a risk,” he said. “What happened shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened. Sometimes we have accidents in the ring, and that was one major accident that could’ve been a lot worse. I think God was with me that night and didn’t let anything happen to me. I could just imagine if that had been concrete (I had fallen on). I would have been hurt pretty bad. Thank God we’ve got a mat that protects us – some. But the landing on my face, nothing took that away.”

Asked if he was angry with the Big Show, Mysterio responded, “I would have to say I’m just going to take my precautions next time.”

Mysterio said he had spoken with Big Show since the accident. “There were apologies, and we talked it over,” he said. “I’m the type of guy who, if they want to do something and it’s crazy and risky, I’m like, ‘Yeah! I’m down for it.’ I love this. But we sometimes (have to consider) who to do it with. If I want to do a dive, I know people who will be there for me, and I’m not going to land straight on the ground and twist my leg or something. So I’m just going to take my precautions next time and think about it. I’ve got to think about myself. I want to last. Something like (being swung into the pole) didn’t seem that dangerous, but it ended up a lot more serious.”

Mysterio had his first set of matches since the accident during WWE’s tour of Europe last weekend. “I got a lot of feedback from the fans all over Europe,” he said. “Thanks to the fans. They feel for me. That’s a good thing.”