Trivia / Alberto Del Rio

• Creator Breakdown: After his second release from WWE, Alberto's behavior started getting more and more erratic, up to and including getting into fights at bars and backstage and making up stories about getting stabbed in one such fight, no-showing events he was booked for, and weird Periscope videos that included him challenging both Triple H and The New Day to fights at his restaurant, while also alleging that the former had a hand in the release of Paige's sex tapes.^note This one is particularly notable as Triple H had absolutely no reason to release those tapes even if he had them at all: he was one of Paige's mentors in NXT, and those tapes were only going to reflect badly on him and WWE, the company he is now heavily involved in behind the scenes, regardless of whoever released them While his ring work is still rather consistent, his character work and overall appearance on TV continued to degrade, including a...memorable^note Read: You can literally see the second he switches into going completely off the rails promo at Bound for Glory 2017 that was so bad that it was cut out of the UK airing of the show, which included him blaming the fans for the domestic violence charge that got him suspended from Impact and stripped of the Impact World Championship. It's not exactly known what triggered this behavior, only that it coincided with his relationship with Paige — most speculate it may just be a midlife crisis. Even years after his breakup and being fired by Impact, he still takes time out of his day to badmouth Paige, who competely ignores it, and unsubtly beg for his WWE job back at the same time.
• Development Gag: As is the case with many of WWE's superstars, both on air and in their development territory, Alberto was known by a name of someone he resembled. He was known as Alberto Banderas during his time in FCW, and the resemblance...well, let's just say he could indeed be◊ related to him◊.
• Money, Dear Boy: WWE broke their promise about letting him keep his mask on, wrote his promos for him despite him proving fluent in English and paired him with Místico often, whom he has expressed open disdain of. He stuck with them, with relatively few (public) complaints, until he discovered he could be making more money somewhere else and couldn't go there. His return could lead to presumptions they got his money right, although it did not come with an official departure from any other regional majors.
• Playing Against Type: Back when he was wrestling in Mexico as "Dos Caras, Jr." He mainly wrestled as a face. This was averted from TLC 2012 to Payback.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Used Molotov's "Frijolero" in AAA, which given the song's lyrics, was a pretty obvious Take That! to the circumstances of the end of his first WWE run.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • After an altercation backstage with an employee who made allegedly a racist joke, Del Rio was originally suspended, but the guy he slapped threatened legal action, so he was let go from WWE.
  • Subverted the first time in Impact Wrestling, when he was accused of domestic abuse against his then-girlfriend Paige by a witness in an airport. Although the issue still caused Del Rio to be suspended, the suspension was eventually lifted after there were inconsistencies found in the witness's report.
  • He was finally fired from Impact Wrestling for no showing Lucha Underground vs. Impact Wrestling in April 2018. Del Rio had a well-known reputation for no-showing by this point, so they might've been able to forgive it — had he not been main-eventing the show with then-Impact World Champion Austin Aries. Also not helping his case here was the fact that he'd been seen walking through the background of another wrestler's stream from WrestleCon that day, meaning that any excuse except a medical emergency was entirely full of shit.
  • Del Rio was set to stand trial on four charges for sexual assault and one for aggravated kidnapping. Unless he can prove his innocence and bring the charge down to just the kidnapping in which he will have to pay a fine of $9,822, he faces life imprisonment. Regardless of the outcome, this most likely signals the end of his wrestling career as it's highly unlikely anyone will want to sign him now. Indeed, the charges eventually got dropped, but no major wrestling company in the world has shown any interest in bringing Del Rio in.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Dated Paige. They got engaged about ten months or so into their relationship, only to break it off due to scheduling conflicts the following year.
  • Shortly after Del Rio and Paige went public with their relationship, it was reported that Del Rio had a brief relationship with Charlotte Flair beforehand, albeit the two never came out as a couple, and neither spoke about it officially. Interestingly, Charlotte would later have a relationship (and this time go public with it) with another Mexican wrestler who came to WWE, Andrade "Cien" Almas.
• What Could Have Been
  • He is a Pan Am game champion who was set to go to the Olympics but Mexico could not afford to send a team, so he turned to professional wrestling instead.
  • His friends in AAA wanted him to leave WWE, not only because he could make more money there, but because they wanted another rudo. He ended up being too popular upon return to be the rudo they wanted initially.
  • He claims WWE promised him a main eventer push for his second stint, which never happened. This fueled Del Rio's exit from the company.
• Write Who You Know: Alberto initially portrayed the Del Rio gimmick based on a composite of people he hates, eventually finding a bridge between that and what's arguably his real personality, the prominence of each depending on alignment. El Patrón in AAA and on the indies was all him.