Rey Mysterio doesn't dole out praise easily when training his son Dominik.
Speaking with the Not About Wrestling Show podcast, Rey Mysterio was asked if he was ever intimidated to be in the ring with any of WWE's giants, to which he replied The Great Khali. Rey then shared a story about a time when Big Show strapped him to a stretcher and swung him hard into the ring post. Apparently, Show didn't feel bad about the incident, but Mysterio says he didn't mind because of how he was raised. Here is what he said when questioned about whether or not he trains Dominik in the same hard-nosed fashion:
"So in a different way. Obviously, that's an old school mentality, but I still tap into the old school mentality roots where I don't praise him for doing something good. I always tell him you can do much better, and I think that's the key sometimes to perfecting certain things in life. In this case with the sport which is eventually in time gonna make him better, but yeah, I'm pretty tough on Dominik, and I love it too, you know. I can't be easy on him."
The situation is slightly different, however, as Rey was already training with men at the age of eight.
"That's how I was raised. I was raised tough, and I was the only kid in the wrestling class that was 8 years old. I was training with 16, 18, obviously, 20-year-olds, and I was the only kid in there. I was raised that way. I was always the smallest in training and still to this day in the ring when I wrestle."
Mysterio says that they never took it easy on each other in the class because they all wanted to learn. At first, he thought his Uncle, who was their teacher, would go easy on him, but believes he was harder on him than any of the other students. Although he didn't understand it at the time, the WWE Superstar admits that at 46 years old, he finally gets it.
Dominik made his in-ring debut for WWE at SummerSlam 2020 where he faced Seth Rollins. He and Rey currently perform together on Friday Night SmackDown. On February 12, they lost an Elimination Chamber qualifying match to Sami Zayn and King Corbin.
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