Question: What's the point of putting together a throwaway match on a pay-per-view in which you totally protect one of its participants, only to turn around the next night and have him go all out in a WWE championship match, despite knowing his knee is shaky and already awaiting the results of an MRI?

Answer: There isn't one.

Nonetheless, this is exactly the scenario that played out with Rey Mysterio over the past week. He was heavily protected in a six-man match at SummerSlam to preserve him for his big match on Raw against Alberto Del Rio for the WWE championship in his hometown of San Diego.

One can't blame the WWE for wanting to take advantage of his star power in that market but they can absolutely be blamed for sending him out to wrestle on an already injured knee knowing full well his proclivity to hurt himself time and time again.

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. The Wrestling Observer has the story:

Mysterio, who probably shouldn't have been working at all, blew out his knee in the Del Rio match in San Diego. It was on a baseball slide spot he heard the knee tear. When the match was over, he couldn't walk at all backstage. We never heard the results of his MRI, but whatever they were, he's now probably going to have to get another one done. There was no definitive word on him whether he would need surgery or how long he'd be out but the talk was he'd probably be out a few months.

Mysterio confirmed this on his Twitter account by announcing that he was, in fact, getting another MRI and doesn't expect to hear results until the end of the week. It doesn't look good, though, and at 37-years-old and having gone through multiple knee surgeries, not to mention a myriad of other injuries, it's not out of line to wonder how much longer Mysterio will remain viable in the pro wrestling world.