Glass Hand Dissolving: Rey Mysterio Jr & Billy Kidman

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vs Raven & Saturn (WCW 4/5/1999) 

This is all action early, big moves, mostly with Rey on the receiving end. Kidman gets a tag and attempts to turn the tide, they have some limited success, but eventually Kidman takes a belly-to-belly from the ring to the outside. From that point, Saturn and Raven really take it to Kidman, drop toe hold on a chair, bug top rope splash, but somehow Kidman reverses a Raven powerbomb and tags in Rey. Mysterio comes in with fire, but Raven kicks him in the junk when Rey attempts a broncobuster. Things quickly become lawless, and to add to the chaos, the ref gets bumped, and Malenko and Benoit hit the ring, attack Saturn, and Kidman gets the pin. This is pretty good. A lot of the big moves don't really seem to register, but it is short, and I guess over the course of five minutes, you can't expect much attrition. 

vs ICP (WCW 8/23/1999)

I didn't expect this to be good. It isn't. ICP will bump, not in a way that's always convincing or exactly how it should be, but they'll do it. Kidman and Rey try, they only get 5 minutes, and they're working with ICP, and the finish is Vampiro getting in on the match and it ends in a DQ, but Rey and Kidman try and make it as good a match as that can be. They only kind of do that. 

vs Jindrak & O'Haire (WCW 10/30/2000)

Rey and Kidman get to really work underneath here in a way they haven't really done up to this point. They are pretty much always undersized, but not to the degree they are here. Rey bumps all over for both guys for the first five minutes. I don't think Jindrak and O'Haire wrestled this in a great way; they hit high-flying moves, and Jindrak leapfrogs Mysterio, and I think some of that is how they were told to wrestle, to come off as WRESTLERS OF THE FUTURE, but it doesn't really help them as heels or Rey and Kidman as faces. This ends when Alex Wright and Disco Inferno interfere, and Jindrak and O'Haire get the win. Again, Rey and Kidman try, but things are not stacked in their favor or in the favor of the match. 

vs Team Angle (WWE 3/13/2003)

Kidman and Mysterio both get to show out in this match. It is about seven minutes, and they hit everything on Haas and Benjamin. In a way, it is nice, but at the same time, Team Angle takes all of their big offense, and doesn't really seem all the worse for wear. Benjamin takes a 619 and a plancha, shortly after Kidman hits the shooting star on Haas, but Benjamin breaks up the pin, poorly, I may add, and then Benjamin is back in the ring and wrestling, Haas recovers quickly and pins Kidman shortly after eating him finish. Not Rey and Kidman's problem, but not great for the match. I will say that these guys have two exceptional matches, the one from Vengence was so good I watched it twice in a row to make sure. 

vs Matt Hardy & Shannon Moore (WWE 7/24/2003)

This is a pretty good Cruiserweight tag. Hardy and Moore work as cheating heels and frustrate Mysterio and keep Kidman uninvolved for most of this. At some point, all four get in the ring and things sort of break down. Hardy and Mysterio pair off, and Kidman and Moore are left in the ring. Fairly shortly after that point, Kidman hits the Shooting Star Press and his team gets the win. Rey is so good in this, just everything looks good, and the crowd is invested. Hardy looks good too, working as the much bigger wrestler against Mysterio.  

Verdict

I'm not sure how much of this being is Rey being incredible, or if this is just a very good team. I will say that Kidman isn't really that much of a factor in these five matches. He isn't bad, but if doesn't carry stretches of the match in a meaningful way. It doesn't hurt the matches; they are all varying degrees of good, but it is something I thought about. 

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