Tag: Eddie Guerrero

December 12, 2005 Observer Newsletter: WWE begins exploiting Eddie Guerrero’s death, drug testing policy coverage

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

There’s something about death and pro wrestling that brings out both the best and worst in the business.

The best is that many promotions run benefit shows for families of the deceased. The highest profile ones were the annual Brian Pillman shows put on by Les Thatcher in Cincinnati. They were considered the biggest independent shows of the year, and some of the biggest names in history, including Ric Flair, Steve Austin, Chris Benoit, Ricky Steamboat, Kevin Nash, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Rey Mysterio, Konnan, Road Dogg, Vampiro, Raven and countless others did the events, all without pay.

Most of the shows raised more than $30,000. In their heyday, it was the lone night of the year that WWF, WCW and ECW performers appeared in the same ring. Their ending a few years back was not pretty, as Thatcher no longer had the time to do them after signing a WWF deal to run a developmental territory, leading to a falling out with Melanie King, Pillman’s widow.

Subscribers can read this issue here.

December 5, 2005 Observer Newsletter: The life and times of Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

If there is a legacy that Eddy Guerrero will leave in pro wrestling from a historical basis, it is that of all the ten of thousands of wrestlers who started their careers in Mexico, on a world wide basis, at least to the non-Spanish speaking world, he ended up being the biggest star of all. And if anyone had ever told him that, he’d probably thank them, and likely never believe it.

But among those who knew him well, his in-ring ability, as well as the level of star he became, almost went without saying. In fact, at his funeral on 11/17 at the Green Acres Funeral Home in what was to be his new hometown of Phoenix, it almost did. Everybody knew what a great wrestler Guerrero was to the point nobody had to say it. At best, it crept into a conversation here or there.

John Layfield noted that Guerrero led him through the most important matches of his career in the feud that made him. Dean Malenko said that every top star in his career has the one opponent people most remember them with, and for him, that person was Eddy Guerrero. Chris Jericho noted that he wished he could have had a major run with Eddy Guerrero as a tag team.

Billy Graham talked about being so moved by what turned out to be the biggest match of Guerrero’s career, his February 15, 2004, WWE championship win over Brock Lesnar, that he got his number from someone at the WWE and called him up. Eddy got the call the day after the match, and at first, thought one of the wrestlers was ribbing him.

As Graham praised him for the match, he shot back with, “Why would Superstar Billy Graham be calling me up?” But it began what turned out to be a relatively short friendship built more upon discussions of religion than of pro wrestling.

Subscribers can read this issue here.

November 21, 2005 Observer Newsletter: Death of Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Eddy Guerrero was a wonderful human being.

It’s very easy to write this, becomes everyone knows it’s true. It’s only unfortunate that it takes something like this to let everyone know. Pray for his family, and his close friends who were really his second family, but also pray for the business he loved that somehow, this death will not be in vain.

He was also very much human. That was what made him so endearing to those around him, and connect so strongly to those who didn’t even know him and still felt like they had lost a good friend. And in its own way, that is what also led to his tragic demise.

It is probably fitting that the last words Edouardo Gory Guerrero spoke, were to his wife and childhood sweetheart Vickie, telling her that he loved her, at 2:30 a.m. late Saturday night.

He was a good enough high school wrestler to get a scholarship to wrestle at New Mexico State University for one year, but soon found himself the newest Guerrero pro wrestling star across the border in Ciudad Juarez.

Subscribers can read this issue here.

September 27, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Death of Jim Barnett, issues backstage for WWE

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

im Barnett, the last link to the beginning of television wrestling, and for most of the past 55 years, one of the most influential people in the industry, passed away on 9/17 at the age of 80.

Barnett and Sam Muchnick were considered the two most powerful promoters during most of the NWA’s glory period, even though Barnett was actually never an official member until 1969, and for years, other promoters didn’t even want him at meetings. Along with Vince McMahon Sr., and later Eddie Graham, they were the probably most influential men on the promotional end of the industry during the 60s and 70s. He was in the middle of many of the biggest deals and changes that shaped the real changes in wrestling history. He was a charming figure, and with the possible exception of Stu Hart, perhaps the most imitated man in the industry with his effeminate, “Tom, my boy,” entree. 

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DragonKing Dark: The death of Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Karl Stern

Image: WWE

We continue our series discussing 100 of the darkest moments in pop culture history by looking at the death of pro wrestling star Eddie Guerrero.

However, Guerrero’s death differs from others we have looked at so far. Eddy (yes, that is the correct spelling out of his own mouth) was not murdered, nor did he die in a tragic accident. Rather, he died at a young age due to the abuse his body took from the wrestling lifestyle. He was an A+ performer and the pro wrestling business was worse off without him.

On this week’s DragonKing Dark, we remember Eddy Guerrero.

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June 14, 2004 Observer Newsletter: JBL/Germany controversy, potential bad summer for wrestling

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

John Layfield caused a lot of controversy, and lost his CNBC jobs, stemming from his actions on the 6/5 show in Munich, Germany, when he kept goose stepping and making Nazi signs on six occasions. The actions took place during a series of matches that started with a singles match with Eddy Guerrero, turned into a handicap match when Booker T joined in, and finished as a tag team match when Undertaker helped out Guerrero.

According to several live reports, most of the fans did not find this the slightest bit entertaining. Of course, he didn’t do it to entertain as much as attempt to get heel heat. Goose stepping and saluting Hitler are illegal in Germany, although it’s very possible he didn’t know that. No charges were filed, and Layfield, 36, worked the next night in Oberhausen, where he did nothing of the sort, and left the country without incident. 

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June 7, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Eddie Guerrero TV special, Vince McMahon Off the Record appearance, more

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

The life and near death of Eddie Guerrero made for a riveting television special on UPN on 5/26, called “Cheating Death, Stealing Life.” The story was about Guerrero’s childhood, wrestling career and battle back from drug and alcohol addiction that came closer to killing him than nearly anyone realized.

The unfortunate thing is the show was programmed against the “American Idol” finals (17.74 rating), and got destroyed in the ratings. A special like this could have made Guerrero’s triumphs into a much stronger character had it been done when wrestling was hot and there was a large passionate audience. Today, I just see it as potentially making for a great DVD story when, presumably, it gets released late this year. It had no real business impact other than showing WWE can do an interesting wrestling documentary, that even with promotion for weeks, can’t get most of its core audience to watch.

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May 24, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE Judgment Day, career of Pepper Gomez

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

The WWE Judgment Day PPV needed a home run going into the main event, and Eddy Guerrero and John Bradshaw Layfield responded with one of the bloodiest matches in company history.

When the night was over, the ring was filled with puddles of Guerrero blood, and Guerrero himself, after the adrenaline wore off, went into shock and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance due to excessive blood loss. After the TV cameras went off, he collapsed in the ring from blood loss, and had to be helped backstage, where an ambulance was called. Guerrero took 16 stitches in the forehead from the ridiculously deep cut. At the hospital, they suggested him getting a blood transfusion, but he turned it down, and they pumped two bags of fluids into him for a while before letting him go at 1 a.m. that night.

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February 23, 2004 Observer Newsletter: No Way Out with Brock Lesnar vs. Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

A lot of history came together, as a member of one of pro wrestling’s most famous families broke a life long size barrier to international superstardom in what is country’s oldest major wrestling arena, and among the business’ all-time most historical buildings.

A few years ago, even though he was as talented as any wrestler in the business, Eddy Guerrero would have been just about the last person anyone would think would ever win a WWF heavyweight championship. Quite frankly, he wouldn’t have even been considered as a possible main eventer due to his size, the same tag line about him that has been said literally since he was a skinny 19-year-old wrestling in Juarez. And even with his newfound popularity, Guerrero had never even headlined a PPV show until 2/14, the night he captured the WWE championship from Brock Lesnar at the Cow Palace.

The win capped 50 years since the first time a Guerrero had challenged for a world heavyweight title, when Eddie’s father, Salvador “Gori” Guerrero, challenged Lou Thesz at Arena Mexico in 1954.

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November 19, 2001 Observer Newsletter: Mass WWF layoffs, more

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

In the first very public acknowledgement of the business decline being a serious issue, WWFE laid off nine percent of its front office staff, totally 39 employees, along with bouncing company President Stuart Snyder in the largest mass layoff in company history on 11/8.

The cuts were across the board, but hardest hit was the internet side, with it merging with the publications department under Shane McMahon. With the change in the internet economy and the huge drop in advertising, providing constant new content for the web site no longer generates significant income and the upkeep of the site for anyone in wrestling seems to be, at best, a loss leader that is largely there to attract viewers to sell merchandise.

With the departure of Snyder, President and Chief Operating Officer, who handled the day-to-day business since being hired in June of 2000, technically called a resignation having nothing to do with the layoffs, although few believe that description, Linda McMahon will take over more in day-to-day business activities.

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VIDEO: ‘WWE Untold’ episode on Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Ahead of SmackDown 1000, WWE’s YouTube channel has released a documentary on Eddie Guerrero.

The “WWE Untold” episode on Guerrero’s contributions to SmackDown premiered on WWE’s YouTube channel at 1 p.m. Eastern time today. It examines how “Guerrero emerged as a leader on SmackDown in the early days of the 2002 brand split, both on-screen as a performer and behind the scenes as a locker room leader for a group of young Superstars out to prove themselves on a show that found itself competing with Monday Night Raw.”

Interviews with Vickie Guerrero, Aiden English (who is married to Guerrero’s daughter Shaul), John Cena, Batista, Kurt Angle, JBL, Paul Heyman, and Sasha Banks are included in the episode.

WWE also released an episode of Untold prior to last month’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view. It focused on Mick Foley’s Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker at King of the Ring 1998.

The 17-minute episode on Guerrero available to watch below:

Wrestling Weekly: Brock vs. Goldberg, EVOLVE, and Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by Victor Sosa

The most wonderful time of the year is nearly upon us and there’s lots of ground to cover this week from your hosts Vic Sosa and Les Thatcher.

We start with a few words on Timothy Thatcher (7:12) who recently suffered a concussion at a recent EVOLVE show, plus some thoughts on Drew Gulak and Tony Nese (10:38) who recently signed WWE deals.

The 13th of this month marked the anniversary of Eddie Guerrero’s passing (16:07), so we’ll spend a few minutes on the WWE Hall of Famer as well.  In addition, the guys talk Brock vs. Goldberg at Survivor Series this weekend (22:39), and the dismissal of Joey Styles from a number of companies this week based on what happened in Evolve last weekend (30:51).

We then move on to the mailbag where we’ll tackle whether or not WWE missed a marketing opportunity Monday night (46:42) and formatting a 1 hour wrestling TV show (51:03). 

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Wrestling Weekly: the future of WWE roster cuts, Sting, Vintage Observer review

Posted on by Victor Sosa

On this week’s Wrestling Weekly, Les Thatcher and Vic Sosa look back at the days when you could count on a bunch of roster cuts from WWE shortly after Wrestlemania and wonder if it might be time for that to happen again.

We’ll also talk Sting in the WWE HOF (29:01) and remember the night one of Les’ dear friends was honored by WCW in a very moving ceremony (34:36). As always, we’ll close the show with the mailbag (42:48). 

Thanks for listening and have a great weekend~!

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Classic Audio: November 13, 2005 Bryan and Vinny Show: The Death of Eddie Guerrero

Posted on by F4W Staff

On November 13, 2005 the wrestling world lost one of its brightest stars at the age of 38. Eddie Guerrero was found unconscious by his nephew Chavo in his hotel room, but was later declared dead by paramedics. It was later discovered that his death was due to heart failure brought on by a blocked artery.

 Eddie was a journeymen wrestler similar to the likes of Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit, wrestling all over the world. From his beginnings in Mexico, working as “Black Tiger” in NJPW, winning the Television title in ECW, to having classic matches in the cruiserweight division of WCW, Eddie was a fan favorite that never quite hit the main event level. That was until his run in WWE where he captured the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Brock Lesnar in 2004.

 Until his death he remained a headliner for the Smackdown brand, feuding with JBL, Rey Mysterio, and Batista. In 2006 he was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, as well as the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.

This week’s classic audiolooks back at a Bryan and Vinny Show from 2005 discussing the death of Eddie Guerrero. They also review TNA’s Genesis pay per view which featrued Jeff Jarrett and America’s Most Wanted vs. Team 3D and Rhyno as well as AJ Styles vs. Petey Williams. A somber show, but historic with memories of the late Eddie Guerrero.

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