Rey Mysterio On WWE Once Warning Him Over His Outfits, Having Reservations Signing With WWE, More

On episode 84 of Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast, 'The King Of Lucha Libre' Rey Mysterio, Jr. talked about a number of topics including making the jump from WCW to WWE, debuting for WWE with his trademark mask, and WWE telling him to not borrow so much from other companies' intellectual properties with respect to his ring gear.
Apparently, Mysterio had reservations about a WWE run, as he always thought that WWE only had interest in larger talents.
"In all honesty, I was doubting myself because so many guys had told me, 'man, Vince [McMahon] ain't about the smaller weight classes. He likes bigger guys in his company.' So when they bought out WCW, they said, 'sit back with your WCW contract and get paid. You're not going to have to work. Just get paid and when your contract runs out,' which was the following year of 2001, April, 'then, we can sit down and negotiate.'" Mysterio continued, "[do] you know what? They kept their word. I remember January of 2001, I did a little bit of shows in Puerto Rico because I had never been there. I was able to work in Arena México for the first time, so a lot of things happened that I wanted to accomplish on my own. And then, sure enough, the call came. [Jim Ross] hit me up and he said, 'hey, are you ready to sit down and negotiate?' We sat down [and] negotiated. I was like, 'all I want is an opportunity'. You know, that's all I wanted and that's what I got."
Mysterio claimed that WWE wanted him to come to WWE under a mask, which he was happy to do after reluctantly losing his mask in WCW.
"That was their idea. Oh yeah, I actually loved that idea, but it was up to them. They said, 'when you're coming back, you're coming back with the mask.' Cool, I'm down. And it hadn't been that long. I probably wrestled for about a year [or] a year and a couple of months without the mask, so it was kind of fresh, but at the same time, they were ready to see a new Rey Mysterio."