On SmackDown (July 24), Santos Escobar was named the winner of the United States Championship Invitational. It looks like that was always the plan for how his match with Rey Mysterio would end. But how it happened was not.
Referee Jessika Carr stopped the match when Mysterio’s head hit the floor when Escobar did a suicide dive on him during a commercial break.
Prayers up for @ReyMysterio 🙏 pic.twitter.com/1yobuNhgLG
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— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) July 29, 2023
The first thing people said online was that this was all part of a story and that Mysterio wasn’t hurt. It would have been a strange way to end the game, but Escobar’s worry after the match and the respect shown by both men seemed to show that the ending was a good one.
Overnight, however, both Fightful Select and PWTorch said that Rey was actually hurt and that WWE stopped the match because of this. Escobar was supposed to win the match, but he was supposed to beat Mysterio without getting hurt. Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful said that because of the injury, a backstage follow-up portion was also cancelled.
Wade Keller of The Torch says what many people thought after seeing the spot: that the halt happened because the medical team at ringside thought Rey had a concussion.
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On the August 11 show of SmackDown, Escobar is now set to fight Austin Theory for the United States title. That gives WWE a couple of weeks to change the story now that Escobar won’t be going into that match with a clear win over his Hall of Fame friend and coach.
The health of the 48-year-old Mysterio is, of course, more important. Help us send Rey our best wishes for a full recovery. We’ll let you know if and when his state or progress changes.
