10 Wrestlers Who FORCED WWE To Push Them
2. Rey Mysterio
Similarly to Chris Jericho before him, Rey Mysterio also learned pretty quickly that Vince McMahon wasn't the biggest fan of pushing smaller folk as main event performers.
In fact, as revealed by Kurt Angle last year on his Kurt Angle Show (at around 13:00 in the video below), the boss simply was "not folding with Rey" as a main eventer when he arrived in the company in 2002.
After someone got in his ear and told the WWE Chairman he should give the masked cruiserweight a chance, though, Vince decided to throw him into a SmackDown show-closer opposite Angle and Chris Benoit. Here, Rey-Rey picked up the win in front of his roaring hometown crowd in San Diego and forced McMahon to take him seriously as a top star.
Yet again, Vince was evidently wrong on this occasion.
Four years on from that Vince-convincing display on the blue brand, the adored Mysterio was both a Royal Rumble winner and World Heavyweight Champion. And even 21 years after his WWE debut, the iconic luchador is still lifting gold on SmackDown and outworking half the roster.