Dominik Mysterio on His Favorite WWE Star, the Perfect Chicken Tender and More

WWE SummerSlam 2025 marks five years since Dominik Mysterio wrestled his very first match for WWE, though no one at the time could have ever imagined the level of immense popularity he'd eventually amount to.

It's also 15 years to the very event that he was first involved with WWE as part of a significant storyline with Eddie Guerrero and his father Rey Mysterio where the two battled for (kayfabe) custody of Dominik in an unforgettable Ladder match.

Dirty Dom now walks into WWE's biggest party of the summer looking to carve his own legacy as the reigning Intercontinental champion by not only defending the title against archrival AJ Styles but also representing the promotion as part of its partnership with Chase Freedom for the event.

With every prominent position he finds himself in and every opportunity that comes his way, he never ceases to excel, sending the message that he has merely scratched the surface of what he can accomplish, especially on his own.

Ahead of SummerSlam, Dominik Mysterio caught up with Bleacher Report to discuss his debut at the 2005 installment of SummerSlam, his biggest purchases with Chase Freedom Unlimited, his current favorite WWE star, where he discovered the perfect chicken tender, and more.

Working with Chase Freedom and His First Big Purchase

Dominik Mysterio is living large in the lead-up to his Intercontinental Championship clash with AJ Styles at SummerSlam courtesy of Chase Freedom, the official sponsor of the event.

“Thanks to Chase Freedom Unlimited, I've been getting taken care of,” he told Bleacher Report. “I'm at this super nice hotel. They have decent tenders, good ranch. Being on the road every week and constantly getting rental cars, hotels, food, it makes it really easy having my Freedom Unlimited card and being able to get cash back and get claim prizes and other stuff I had no idea about.”

Chase Freedom card members have exclusive access to the fast lane at SummerSlam with the chance to skip the stadium line. That includes the SuperStore at American Dream Mall, where Mysterio will be busy with autograph signings and photo-ops all weekend before his big bout.

He hasn't wasted any time in putting his Freedom Unlimited card to good use by stylin' and profilin' as as a champion and making expensive purchases he could have only dreamed of earlier in his career.

“My first big purchase was, I went to Louis Vuitton and did some damage there, but my actual [first purchase was] a car,” he said. “I got a Range Rover that I ended up trading... That car ended up turning off on me in the middle of a snowboarding trip, but we're good now thanks to my Freedom Unlimited card.”

Reflecting on SummerSlam 2005 Debut and His Current Favorite WWE Star

Dominik was an instant fan favorite the moment he was introduced to the WWE Universe during the summer of 2005, and he'd pop up by his father Rey's side many more times in the years that followed.

He would of course go on to infamously betray Rey in late 2022 and join The Judgment Day, but it was the Custody of Dominik Ladder match that started it all for him. However, he revealed he was only able to spend a fraction of the money he made from that match when he was younger and didn't discover what happened with the rest of it until just recently.

“My parents stole that money from me when I was a little kid,” he said. “They said it was saved. I got paid $5,000 and bought a $200 bike and they said it was done. They said, 'Your money's gone.' But I recently found out in an interview from my deadbeat dad that he used that money as a down payment for one of those cars when I was a kid... At the end of the day, that was mine. I worked for that. You didn't go and bump!”

Dominik has gone on the record in saying that he holds a grudge against his father to this day, and he isn't the only one, either. He added that The Miz would routinely tease him during his younger years about being his favorite wrestler.

While that certainly wasn't the case then, it is now, according to the Intercontinental champ.

“The Miz would always go around and say he was my favorite wrestler when I was a kid and it would make me so angry because now as a grown adult, he absolutely is my favorite wrestler and it sucks because he was so right,” he said. “But as a kid, I hated him because he'd come up to me and poke me and say, 'Who's your favorite wrestler?' But now, I got a Freedom Unlimited card and you don't.”

Is a Babyface Turn Inevitable?

When he started out teaming with Rey in 2020, Dominik was never able to find his footing as a babyface. He was infinitely more comfortable as a character upon turning heel in 2022, and almost immediately, he became one of the most hated stars in the entire company.

He plays his role so well that he's managed to unintentionally turn the crowd back in his favor, most notably at WrestleMania 41 when he won the Intercontinental Championship. WWE thankfully didn't pivot him to being a babyface on a whim, but the seeds were surely planted for a future face turn.

Whether it happens while he's with Liv Morgan or not, there will come a time when WWE is forced to embrace the positive crowd reactions he's receiving.

“I react to what's being given to me,” he said. “As of now, they've been booing me, but every now and then, they'll chant that Dirty Dom song, and that Dirty Dom song for one way or another, it gets a crack out of me and I tend to break and smile because it's funny hearing everybody singing it together because I've been getting booed for years.

“I don't know if I'll ever embrace it because I haven't changed anything about myself, I've just been Dirty Dom all the way,” he continued. “So the fact that the people still love it, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.”

His Love for the San Diego Padres

One of the only things Dominik still has in common with Rey is their shared love for the San Diego Padres.

Having lived in San Diego for a majority of his life, Dominik's support of the franchise has never once wavered. He can typically be seen sporting Padres garb when he's not inside the squared circle as well as on the hunt for any new Padres merchandise he may come across outside of the city itself.

“Everywhere I go, if I'm not showing off my luscious mullet, I'm wearing a San Diego Padres hat,” Dominik said. “Honestly, being on the road, too, living in San Diego my whole life, there's a lot of cool San Diego stuff, there's a lot of options to see collabs and stuff from the San Diego you haven't seen out on the west coast. Believe it or not, I've been in the east and seen collabs of cool Padres hats and, shout-out to Chase Freedom, I can use my card to go out and get these kinds of hats. The different collabs and jerseys and mixes, stuff like that is really cool.”

Now that he's firmly in possession of the Intercontinental Championship, he hopes his favorite team will have similar success this season, and the results of the Trade Deadline increase those odds exponentially.

“How about the pick-ups we got yesterday in the Trade Deadline? We got Ryan O'Hearn. We got Mason Miller. Our ERA was already 1.43 I believe, so we got some solid pick-ups. We got Nestor Cortes. I can't say anything bad now because he's a Padre, but we got some solid trades in that deadline.”

Where He Discovered His Favorite Chicken Tenders

Since his first few months in The Judgment Day, Dominik has been synonymous with chicken nuggets and tenders, to the point of it becoming a recurring bit on WWE TV.

He's been mocked and ridiculed relentlessly, but quite simply, it's a meal of choice betting of his caliber of a champion. Roxanne Perez and Liv Morgan both got in his good graces by bringing him some of each. Neither instance will go down as his favorite chicken tenders ever, a distinction currently held by an unnamed diner in North Carolina.

“There was a diner in North Carolina,” he said.” I forgot where, it was in the middle of nowhere. But it was a delicious diner, it had really good chicken tenders with the buttermilk ranch. It was one of those tenders that was super crispy but tender and the meat was perfectly white. You dipped it in the ranch and it was still crunchy.”

In addition to Chase Freedom, Dirty Dominik could be looking at another eventual sponsorship as he continues to climb the ranks of WWE.

They were really good and cheap, too,” he said. “I have to remember the name of it because every time I go back to North Carolina, I know where the diner is but I don't know the name of it so I have to take a picture of it.”

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.