2023 WWE Hall of Famer Rey Mysterio appeared on Logan Paul’s “IMPAULSIVE” podcast this week and opened up about his addiction to painkillers from early on in his WWE run.
Mysterio recalled developing the addiction due to pain from knee surgery, and how his wife Angie gave him an ultimatum.
“So during my big run in WWE and after so many surgeries, I got fucking hooked on painkillers for a very long time,” he recalled. “My wife caught me one time. We were on vacation. She saw that I was just out of it completely, so she gave me an ultimatum. She goes, ‘So when we get back home, you can either take your pills or you can take your family. You choose.’”
Rey decided to get clean, so he went to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and told him he was checking into a rehab facility.
“That really opened me up and it made me a stronger person because I remember getting back home to San Diego, I flew to TV, and the next day, I spoke to Vince,” Rey said. “I told him, ‘Boss I need to check myself in. I’m gonna need some time off.’ He was cool with it. He was like, ‘It takes a fucking man to man up to what you’re doing.’”
Rey talked more about his family and how his wife has been there since day one.
“That was a big life changer for me and a different perspective of life and the appreciation of family and the support of my wife,” he said. “It’s crazy. She’s been there from day one. She went to my first match. It was bad, and to be able to recognize it, and check yourself in, and put everything aside and move on with your life to a positive note, it was crazy. I really enjoyed that phase of my life because I learned so much of what not to do. I was there for 30 days. I haven’t told that story before. Another thing that was really big to me was that my kids were young. Dominik was maybe 10 years old, 12? My daughter was very young. I was really bad prior, but once I eliminated all that toxic mindset, clean.”
Rey continued and recalled his first major injury post-rehab.
“After I went to rehab, probably three years later, I ended up getting another surgery and it was probably the worst one of all,” he recalled. “I remember I was in mad pain. I tore my ACL. I sprained my MCL. They said pretty much my knee was dangling by one thread. So it was pretty bad. I remember I wrestled in San Diego that night and we were the main event. I was wrestling Alberto Del Rio. In the first two minutes of the match, I felt that snap. I was like, ‘Ah, shit. I’m fucked up. Like, no, let’s go home. That’s it. I was like, ‘No, no, no, let’s keep going. We kept rolling, but then afterwards, I probably damaged it more in the 10-12 minutes that I stayed in the ring. I had the surgery. I came home and the doctor gave me painkillers. I took one, and throughout the night, because they had to drill two holes, my knee, I remember it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt from the surgeries that I’ve had in the past. I would tell my wife, ‘No, I’m not gonna take anything. I’m not gonna take anything.’ and I controlled my pain as much as I could until she said, ‘I can’t stand watching like that.’ So it was pretty bad. I remember I was balling out with this. She actually had them so she controlled everything, but I didn’t want to take them.”
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