Rey Misterio, Sr.

Miguel Ángel López Díaz, better known by his ring name Rey Misterio, Sr. is a Mexican professional wrestler, trainer and actor. He is the uncle of well-known wrestler Rey Mysterio, formerly known as Rey Mysterio, Jr.l His ring name translates to "King Mystery" in English. Misterio was one of the top stars and promoters in Mexico throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Professional wrestling career

Misterio first began training to be a boxer, but after his body got bigger, he took a lot of bumps and lost some of his punching ability. When his trainers told him that he could still punch hard, they told Mysterio about wrestling. His brother soon began to take him to train for wrestling and lucha libre. On the sixth of January 1976, Mysterio finally made his debut as a wrestler on a show called "Day of the Kings", or Día de los Reyes. He appeared at World Championship Wrestling's Starrcade 1990 pay-per-view event where he teamed with Konnan and competed in the "Pat O'Connor Memorial International Cup" representing Mexico. In the first round the team defeated Chris Adams and Norman Smiley representing the United Kingdom, but lost to The Steiner Brothers in the second round.

Rey Mysterio

Óscar Gutiérrez (born December 11, 1974), better known by the ring name Rey Mysterio, is a Mexican-American professional wrestler who currently works for Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) and Lucha Underground. He is perhaps best known for his time in WWE from July 2002 until February 2015. He is also known for his work in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Gutierrez was trained by his uncle Rey Misterio, Sr., learning the Lucha Libre high flying style that has been his trademark.

Gutierrez originally worked for AAA in Mexico, from 1992 to 1995. He wrestled in ECW from 1995 to 1996 and WCW from 1996 to 2001 as Rey Misterio Jr. or Rey Mysterio Jr. "Rey Misterio" is Spanish for "King Mystery", but subsequently dropped the "Junior" from his name when he began working for WWE in July 2002 until February 2015.

Mysterio is known for having a high flying style, which helped kick-start the cruiserweight wrestling revolution in the United States in the late 1990s during his time in WCW, and is often regarded as one of the greatest high-flyers in wrestling history. In WCW he won the WCW World Tag Team Championship three times, and the WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship once with Billy Kidman as part of The Filthy Animals. In WWE, Mysterio is a three-time world champion, having held the World Heavyweight Championship twice and the WWE Championship once. He has also held the WWE Tag Team Championship a record-tying four times, and the WWE Intercontinental Championship twice. He also held the WCW/WWE Cruiserweight Championship a record eight times (five times in WCW, three times in WWE). All totaled, he has won 21 titles between WWE and WCW. Mysterio was the 21st person to win the WWE Triple Crown Championship, and was the winner of the 2006 Royal Rumble.

Tag team

Tag team wrestling is a type of professional wrestling in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. A tag team may be made up of wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of established teams who wrestle regularly as a unit and have a team name and identity.

In most team matches, only one competitor per team is allowed in the ring at a time. This status as the active or legal wrestler may be transferred by physical contact, most commonly a palm-to-palm "tag" which resembles a high five.

The team-based match has been a mainstay of professional wrestling since the mid twentieth century, and most promotions have sanctioned a championship division for tag teams.

The term "tag team" has since become used in common parlance to describe two or more people who alternate or cooperate in participation in an activity, and "tag-teaming" to describe the act of alternating with an ally, e.g. a couple tag-teaming in an argument with another person.

WWE

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (d/b/a WWE) is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company that deals primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing and direct product sales. WWE also refers to the professional wrestling promotion itself, founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation. As of 2014, it is the largest wrestling promotion in the world, holding over 300 events a year, and broadcasting to about 36 million viewers in more than 150 countries. The company's headquarters are located in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in major cities across the world.

As in other professional wrestling promotions, WWE shows are not legitimate contests, but purely entertainment-based, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and choreographed matches, though they often include moves that can put performers at risk of injury if not performed correctly. This was first publicly acknowledged by WWE's owner Vince McMahon in 1989 to avoid taxes from athletic commissions. Since the 1980s, WWE publicly branded their product as sports entertainment, which is considered to acknowledge the product's roots in competitive sport and dramatic theater.

Championship

In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.

Championship systems

Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.

Title match system

In this system, a competitor has to challenge the current champion to win the championship. A competitor can challenge the current champion after defeating other challengers. This form of championship is used in wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts and other combat sports.

Tournament system

The term championships (in the plural) is often used to refer to tournament competitions, either using a knockout format, such as at Wimbledon and other championships in tennis, or a mixed format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds, such as used in the European Football Championships.

A variation of the knockout format is the "best-of-X" or series format where two teams face each other for a specified number of times until one team wins the majority of specified games, most of the time the remaining games are not played anymore; only then is the losing team eliminated from contention and the winning team advances to the next level. This format is predominant in American sports such as baseball, ice hockey and basketball, and on test cricket.