By Brian Phelps
Earlier this year, WWE finally signed Mistico after years of speculation about when he would wrestle in the United States. Mistico, the international sensation, immediately went to WWE Developmental for about 2 weeks before being thrown in the bright lights of Monday Night RAW. Going under the name Sin Cara, he was given a rare WWE red carpet treatment. He was given great music, and an amazing entrance where he runs down the entrance ramp and leaps over the ropes and does a front flip into the ring. During his first few attempts however, Sin Cara botched his epic entrance, usually getting slightly caught in the ropes during his front flip. Then during many of his matches, he has been called out and taken to task for consistently "botching" attempted moves. While younger fans are more in awe of what Sin Cara can do, many older fans and those in the IWC have been extremely hard on him, claiming that Sin Cara sucks because he botches all his moves. Also, other fans go as far as to say that he isn't worth the time and should be fired for botching moves.
However, I think everyone is missing the big elephant in the room. Sin Cara is not a screw up, nor is it his fault when he botches moves. Now, before all of you say "Yeah, right!" or "You don't know what you're talking about" allow me to explain. You all say Sin Cara sucks when he botches his moves, but what you don't realize is that most of the time it isn't even his fault. What you all haven't realized is that the entire WWE roster doesn't wrestle the Lucha Libre style (with the exception of Rey Mysterio, and to a lesser degree... Primo). When you put a Lucha Libre wrestler like Sin Cara against a guy that's nothing but a brawling big man like Sheamus who doesn't have any experience wrestling the lucha libre style... what do you expect? Sheamus can't anticipate Sin Cara's offensive moves because he's never wrestled the Lucha Libre wrestling style. When you put Sin Cara in a match against a big technical wrestler like Jack Swagger who also has no experience wrestling Lucha Libre than of course moves will be botched because Swagger can't anticipate lucha libre moves the same way he could John Cena's moves because he knows Cena's moves will just be basic slams.
So, when Sin Cara is booked in matches against guys (big guys at that) that can't wrestle Lucha, then it is much more likely that Jack Swagger, Sheamus, and Christian can't anticipate these unique moves and are more likely to be out of position. Then when Sin Cara lands in an awkward spot, or misses his move then it looks like Sin Cara just doesn't know what he's doing.
Does anyone else notice that his matches against Chavo Guerrero were top notch. He had good matches with Primo. His matches against Evan Bourne and Daniel Bryan were awe inspiring. These matches were great because he was put against guys his size who are more experienced with high flyers and lucha libre style wrestling. When you put him in matches against Jack Swagger, Sheamus, or Christian... it doesn't take rocket science to understand why he was botching moves. If WWE would quit booking him against wrestlers that have no background in Mexican wrestling then he wouldn't be screwing up moves.
As for botching his entrance, that was only the first month he was on TV and that was partially because WWE put him on TV way too soon. He should've spent a couple of months in developmental, but Vince jumped the gun and put him on TV after a couple of weeks. Also, look at his entrance. I've never seen a wrestler before him have to do such a difficult ring entrance. That's a really high jump (even with spring help). You have to jump over the entire ring and do a front flip roll. Ask Rey Mysterio to do that and he would always botch it. It's a lot more difficult then it looks, and that's WWE's fault for demanding entirely too much out of a wrestler's entrance.
Now, I already know that some of you will argue that Rey Mysterio puts on great matches and he wrestles Lucha Libre. Well... yes and no. If you watch Rey Mysterio in WCW from 1996-1999, and you watch a modern Rey Mysterio match... you will see a complete difference in how he wrestles. Rey Mysterio does a fraction of the moves he used to do in WCW. He wrestles a more WWE Style now, which is fewer big risk maneuvers in order to maximize the shock value response from the crowd. Also, you'll notice that the majority of Rey Mysterio's aerial maneuvers nowadays are straight on landings. You'll never see Rey Mysterio do a cork screw moon sault or anything with a real twisted landing like you would when he was in WCW 10-12 years ago. Part of that is the WWE Wrestling style and the other part is that he's had a lot of surgeries on his left knee and he's a lot older now then he was back then. He just can't do what he used to, and he can't do what Sin Cara does.
Rey Mysterio has always had it easy because when he was in WCW they were littered with Lucha Libre Legends like the Guerrero's, Juventud Guerrera, Konnan, Psychosis, Ciclope, Silver King, the Villano's and countless others. He's also had the benefit of wrestling American wrestlers who have wrestled a variety of styles internationally such as Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit etc who really showed Rey how to wrestle the American TV style of wrestling. If Sin Cara had debuted in WCW, he would be fine because half their roster could wrestle Lucha. WWE has never had great success with the Lucha Libre style outside of Mysterio and the Guerrero's. I mean seriously does anyone really remember Essa Rios?
Sin Cara's problem is not Sin Cara. Sin Cara's problem is that he's wrestling on a roster with very few people who can work with a Lucha Libre only style wrestler and have a great match. Outside of Evan Bourne and Rey Mysterio, it's slim pickings trying to find someone who knows his style. There is Primo and Tyson Kidd, but Vince won't give them any TV time. Chavo left WWE. So, who is there really? When Sin Cara has a match against someone who can wrestle Lucha, he does great. When they expect him to put on Lucha against Sheamus... it's bad. It's not rocket science. This is WWE's fault. If they wanted a purely Lucha Libre style wrestler who knows little English to wrestle WWE style American wrestling then they should have given him more then two weeks to learn it in developmental. They probably spent the whole two weeks just putting together his entrance. WWE jumped the gun, and unfortunately Sin Cara (Mistico) has been made the fall guy when he has a bad match when it really isn't his fault. He's been made to be the fall guy when WWE just expected too much too soon from him.
WWE should've put him in a feud with Chavo Guerrero, Trent Baretta, Evan Bourne, and Daniel Bryan from the start... instead of making him look bad by initially putting him with guys like Sheamus and Jack Swagger who are completely clueless when it comes to pure Lucha Libre style wrestling. The IWC is entirely too hard on Sin Cara because if the anti-Sin Cara contingent had considered these things... then they would already know that it's not Sin Cara's fault.
Let's be real. Sin Cara (Mistico) is a legend in Mexico and a superstar in Japan already, and he is only 27. The man has been labeled a superstar all over the world outside of the United States. He's not an idiot. He obviously doesn't suck. If you youtube some of his matches from Mexico and Japan, you'll clearly see that he doesn't just go around botching moves. Have some of the people that hate on Sin Cara even took the time to pay attention to these things, they would see that there is more to it then "he just sucks". He's been wrestling for years, and this isn't his first rodeo. It's obviously Vince's fault for not taking the time to adjust him to the WWE style in developmental for at least 6 months. He jumped the gun because he was hoping the money train would take off immediately instead of preparing him properly for American wrestling and I thought it was just messed up of WWE to make Mistico the fall guy in the whole thing.
