Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
In this day and age of pro wrestling, it is extremely common to see a particular wrestler turn heel (Go bad) or turn face (Go good) at least a few times in their careers. A really well done turn can make and/or break a career. Very few wrestlers in this business have remained face or heel their entire careers. Sure, there are the likes of Ricky Steamboat and Tito Santana who remained babyfaces for the long haul. One wrestler, who often gets put in that same category is the legendary luchador Rey Mysterio. While portraying a babyface for the majority of his career in wrestling, there was a brief and mostly forgettable time where Mysterio played the villain.
It all began in 1999, when Rey infamously lost his mask to Kevin Nash in February of that year. A new, maskless Mysterio would partner with Rap mogul Master P to form the No Limit Soldiers faction. The concept would ultimately fail miserably and Rey was not being utilized to his full potential. As his good friend Konnan said, “This is how messed up WCW was. They were doing absolutely nothing, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing, with Torie Wilson, with Billy Kidman, with Rey Mysterio, with Eddie Guerrero, and myself. That’s the original Filthy Animals. I went to them and I said look, ‘If you’re going to bury us, if you’re not going to do nothing with us, then bury us together. Do nothing with us together. Let us have fun together.’ That’s how The Filthy Animals came about.”
With the formation of the Filthy Animals, the team mainly acted as “tweeners” meaning they didn’t act as straight up babyfaces or heels, but rather somewhere in the middle. They did act very heelish on occasions, like the time they stole Ric Flair’s entrance robe and made fun of the aging Flair. They also triple teamed on Flair attacking him and burying him in the Las Vegas desert.
The Filthy Animals would often cheat and use questionable methods to win matches. Rey would be given a “girlfriend” in his time with the faction in the form of former Nitro girl Tygress. She would also be used as a valet to the group and often participated in outside interference. Rey acted arrogantly and and at times, played off the crowd’s boos of him and the Filthy Animals.
The heel run of Rey and the Filthy Animals didn’t work as most fans didn’t accept him as a heel or were simply indifferent about his heelish attitude. The faction lasted until 2001 with little to no real memorable moments. His heel run is often overlooked and forgotten about and for very good reason…it just never worked.