As far back as I can remember, pro wrestling has been in a tug of war between two types of storytelling.

The older form is one that would have you believe that everything you see & hear on television is real. That was seen as the best way to get fans to go from being casual television viewers to be ticket-buying customers. Folks would be more likely to go see a big title match in person if they believed it was a legitimate sporting event. People would get more invested in stories between wrestlers if they believed everything happening was a complete shoot.

Then you have those who think that fans can handle wrestling being entertainment. They think of wrestling as a male soap opera, and they want to have storylines that play to those classic soap instincts. Stories that keep fans coming back week after week just like the best soap opera storylines did. Soap opera fans didn’t confuse these stories with reality, they accepted them for what they were. They didn’t assume the actors or actresses were their actual character, unless they were demented in the head.

As we’ve seen in 2020, way too many people are demented in the head. They think that all this rasslin stuff is real, and it gets to them. When they see Rey Mysterio’s family on television, they think that all of this stuff is real. I mean, come on, did anybody actually think that Eddie Guerrero helped Rey’s wife get pregnant to produce Dominick? It was a total storyline for Eddie to sell “Who’s Your Papi” t-shirts. I love joking about it as much as anybody else, but we all know it was a gag. It was a telenovela storyline intended to get the Hispanic audience interested because that’s the kind of thing that draws well with Hispanic audiences. Telenovelas do good business, and they love family drama.

Rey Mysterio has a family ripe for drama.

WWE knew this back in 2005, when they did a storyline based around who was Rey’s son Dominick’s actual father. In 2010, we saw CM Punk sing Rey’s daughter Aalyah a Happy Birthday. Rey has always been about trotting his family out on television, which could lead to problems. I mean, if you’re always bringing your daughter to shows, wouldn’t you expect her to make some friends along the way? Apparently Dominick made no friends because nobody saved him from asskickings when Rey wasn’t there, but most wrestler’s kids that got drug into locker rooms by their parents would eventually make friends with other wrestlers. Wrestlers are friendly, especially if you’re not a dirtsheet writer.

It just so happened that Aalyah made friends with somebody associated with one of her father’s enemies.

Man, did people get pissed off about this development! Poor Alexa Bliss tried to put the story over on Twitter, and got shouted down into deactivation as a result. See, Alexa encouraged her ex to shoot his shot, which a lot of people had opinions about. There’s a bit of an age difference between Aalyah & Murphy. Alexa decided that the best way to defend her take was by pointing out that her current boyfriend is nine years older than she is. That didn’t help things. I don’t know what people expected from somebody that’s currently being booked as under the influence of The Fiend, especially assuming that the people responding think that Rey’s daughter is actually having a thing with Murphy.

To which, I can only respond with the following:

Also, I’m wondering why a male and a female human being can’t just be friends. Kurt Angle did the same back in 2000 during a storyline with Stephanie McMahon & Triple H. It’s not a perfect comparison, as Stephanie had shown interest in Kurt as a way to needle Triple H prior before they actually ended up feuding. Eventually, Kurt & Stephanie got over whatever interest there might have been and ended up as business partners. There was a rocky patch, but a quote Kurt made keeps popping in my head whenever the subject of Murphy & Aalyah is broached:

“Why can’t a guy & girl just be friends?”

I don’t know. Me, I’ve just been friends with plenty of females, including females at or around Aalyah’s age while I was about ten years older. See, I was working at Great American Ballpark on the retail side of things for the past several years before the pandemic, and there was a number of co-workers through the years that happened to be female and around Aalyah’s age. I couldn’t help it that my sensibilities were in line with college age women, and I found them more interesting to talk to during breaks than women thirty years older than me, or men of varying ages.

Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. Nothing untoward came of any of those situations. I can’t classify any of my relationships with women of that age while working at GABP as anything more than a casual friendship. Which is all I was looking for. I damn sure wasn’t going to pursue anything further. I was just talking to people during breaks in the action that I felt like were worth talking to. I talked to men too, for the record! If somebody happened to be around during a break that seemed interesting, I talked to them. If they weren’t interesting or started talking about old people politics, I tended to avoid them.

There was nothing sexual involved in anything I’ve ever been involved in at work.

And as far as we can tell, there’s nothing sexual about the relationship between Aalyah Mysterio & Murphy. It’s definitely an odd combination, considering that Murphy has latched onto Seth Rollins as a mentor & Rollins has been all about bothering the Mysterio family for the past few months. But, let’s be honest, there have been plenty of peculiar friendships over the years in professional wrestling. You just never know which people will hit it off and which won’t.

So what if Murphy & Aalyah hit it off and became friends?

For one thing, if you want to get into the storyline aspect of it all, it’s Rey Mysterio’s fault. He keeps dragging his kids backstage to these WWE events every single week. Does he not expect them to make friends? Obviously Dominick hasn’t, but maybe Aalyah is just better at interacting with people? I don’t personally know her so I can’t say for sure, but we can’t rule it out.

Then, we have all the personal hangups that wrestling fans have concerning situations like this. For one, a lot of them disagree with Kurt Angle’s assertion that a guy & a girl can just be friends. I understand it, as I was in that boat for much of my early years. I missed out on a lot back in those days when I only saw the opposite sex for sexual purposes. Could have had some good long-lasting friendships. Not something I’m proud of, but it’s also not something that all wrestling fans grew out of.

That’s the only reason I can think of for people getting all hot & bothered that Aalyah Mysterio is nineteen years old, and Murphy is thirty-two. They’ve all jumped to the conclusion that the only reason Murphy would have a conversation with Aalyah is that he’s gotten a little lonely during the pandemic. And, frankly, his ex didn’t help matters online even if she thought she was being supportive of somebody she still considers a friend.

More importantly than all that…

IT’S A FREAKING STORYLINE! FICTIONAL! STORYLINE! MURPHY & AALYAH MYSTERIO ARE NOT ACTUALLY AN ITEM TO THE BEST OF ANYBODY’S KNOWLEDGE, ON OR OFF OF TELEVISION! THEREFORE, THEIR AGE DIFFERENCE IS IRRELEVANT! AND EVEN IF THEY WERE AN ITEM, IS THIRTEEN YEARS THAT BIG A DEAL IN THE BIG SCHEME OF THINGS? THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT IS MARRIED TO SOMEBODY TWENTY-FOUR YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM! HAS ANYBODY SAID A WORD ABOUT THAT? NO? THEN WHY ARE WE MAKING A BIG DEAL OF A FICTIONAL WRESTLING STORYLINE WHERE TWO PEOPLE ARE JUST FRIENDS AS FAR AS WE KNOW?

Like, what the hell are we doing here? This is what we’re getting worked up about in 2020? I could name 2,020 things more worth getting worked up about in 2020 than a silly telenovela storyline involving Rey Mysterio’s family. I’m not even saying it’s riveting television that’s worth sitting through three hours of Raw for. Nor am I knocking Aalyah or Dominick for their performances, they’ve been thrust into this position and are doing the best they can. I have nothing bad to say about either of Rey’s children.

All I’m saying is that those of you getting all hot & bothered over this whole story with the Mysterio family & Murphy due to the age difference of people involved apparently have never watched another television show in your life, or you’re taking this one wayyyyyyy too seriously. Calm down. Relax. Or find something actually worth getting mad about if that’s what you want to do.