Summary
WWEsuperstar Dominik Mysterio has finally answered the 18-year-old question of what game he was playing on his PlayStation Portable during his earlier television appearances. The son of legendary luchador wrestler Rey Mysterio, Dominik joined WWE as an in-ring competitor in 2019, and has appeared as aplayable character inWWE 2K22andWWE 2K23. After joining forces with Rhea Ripley and the villainous Judgment Day faction, “Dirty” Dom has become one of the most reviled bad guy wrestlers on the current roster, thanks in no small part to an emotionally charged feud with his father earlier this year.
As long-time WWE fans know, Dom’s current heel run isn’t the first major storyline he was involved in. Way back in 2005, Rey Mysterio was in the middle of an intense feud with thelate wrestler Eddie Guerrero, and an eight-year-old Dominik eventually found himself caught up in their battle. Guerrero claimed that he was Dominik’s biological father and tried to take custody of the boy, leading to a ladder match between him and Rey to determine Dominik’s future at that year’s SummerSlam pay-per-view.
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This angle is considered one of the most infamous and bizarre plotlines in WWE history, but there is one minor detail that has eluded fans for the past 18 years. During certain backstage segments, a young Dominik could be seen playing a PSP. A couple of decades later, an older Dom appeared onXavier Woods’s gaming-based YouTube channelUpUpDownDown, where he and a group of other wrestlers were playing video games backstage. The topic of what game Dom played backstage in 2005 eventually came up, and he revealed that he might have been playingGrand Theft Autoduring one of his later appearances those many years ago.
More specifically, Dominik was playingGrand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the PSP spin-off that was released not too long after Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero were fighting for custody of him on TV. It wasthe first 3DGrand Theft Autoreleased on a handheld device and served as a prequel to the highly-influentialGrand Theft Auto 3, using that title’s fictional Liberty City setting and telling the backstory of notorious mob boss Toni Cipriani as he rose the ranks of the Leone crime family. Critical response toLiberty City Storieswas overwhelmingly positive, and it eventually become the highest-selling PSP game of all time.
As it turns out, one of the many gamers who playedGrand Theft Auto: Liberty City Storieson their PlayStation Portable back in the day was an eight-year-old Dominik Mysterio during his first televised appearances inWWE. Very few would have guessed that the young boy hanging out with his dad backstage would become one of the promotion’s most nefarious wrestlers just a couple of decades later, and there are a few humorous parallels between the criminal activity featured inGTAand “Dirty” Dom’s later antics as part of The Judgment Day, which include his current reign as the NXT North American Champion.
