Dominik Mysterio has had no shortage of jaw-dropping career moments — WrestleMania title wins, beating John Cena in his hometown — but in a new interview, he revealed the moment that actually gave him goosebumps above all others: a surprise appearance in Juárez, Mexico for AAA.
Sitting down with Brad Gilmore on The Collection at Reality of Wrestling in Houston, Dom ranked his career highlights with characteristic bravado and surprising self-awareness.
The AAA Surprise Was His Wildest Moment
The wildest one for me was showing up in Triple A for the first time in Juárez," Mysterio said. "Winning my IC championship at WrestleMania — insane. Beating John Cena at Survivor Series — insane. WrestleMania against my deadbeat dad two hours from San Diego — insane. But the reaction...
Dom arrived at 8:15 PM for a show that had already started at 8, with no public announcement that he was coming. The crowd reaction, he says, was something else entirely.
Allegedly when they were recording, the speakers blew out because it was so loud the cameras couldn't capture the full audio. It gave me goosebumps," he said. "It was something I always wanted to do — wrestle in Mexico with Triple A — and getting that reaction, showing up randomly out of nowhere where nobody knew about it. It was insane.
That Juárez moment has since grown into something much bigger. Mysterio has become a centerpiece of WWE's reboot of AAA, serving as the marquee crossover star bridging both promotions — and this Saturday, the stakes couldn't be higher. Dominik defends the AAA Mega Championship against El Hijo del Vikingo at AAA Rey de Reyes 2026 in a No Disqualification Lucha de Apuestas match. If Dom loses, he's banned from AAA entirely. If Vikingo loses, he can never challenge for the title again. The match streams Saturday at 10 ET/7 PT on FOX in Latin America and on YouTube and Facebook everywhere else.
Survivor Series at Petco Park: 'A Fairy Tale Ending'
While the AAA surprise topped Dom's personal list, he acknowledged the Survivor Series moment — walking out IC Champion after beating John Cena at Petco Park in his hometown of San Diego — as something equally surreal.
Not only was it John Cena's last PLE, it was the first wrestling event ever held at Petco Park in San Diego," Mysterio said. "I'm born and raised in San Diego. I've gone to Padre games my whole life. Walking in, in the city where I'm from, walking out as a double champion, beating John Cena — that shit's insane. You can't write it. It just writes itself. It's like a fairy tale ending for me.
The WrestleMania Crowd That Confused Him
Dom also reflected on the strange experience at WrestleMania 41, where the heavily Latino Las Vegas crowd started cheering for the man they had been booing all year.
I'd get beat up and they'd start booing, then I'd start doing something and they'd go crazy. I was like, 'This is not normal — they're probably watching something else because this isn't adding up,'" he said.
Rather than lean into the fan response or adjust his character, Dom chose to stay the course as a heel. "I didn't change anything about myself and I wasn't going to change anything of what I was currently doing. I'm still going to be the heel that I am. And if people like it, they like it. Hell, sometimes you got to love a bad guy."
With the WWE/AAA alliance continuing to build momentum, Mysterio's Rey de Reyes title defense this Saturday is his biggest crossover test yet — and the Lucha de Apuestas stipulation means there's no soft landing for either man.
