A Look at Eddie Guerrero
January 13, 2005

Eddie Guerrero was born into the fist Mexican in pro family in the year 1967, with Eddie being the son of wrestling legend Gory Guerrero, who is one of the greatest in the history of this buisness it was no doubt Eddie and three younger brothers would persue a carrer in the sport of professional wrestling.

Gory was the patriarch of arguably the premier family in wrestling history. Eddie's older brothers Chavo, Mando and Hector gained worldwide reputations as excellent wrestlers, plying their trade in rings in Mexico and Japan, as well as several big territories across the U.S. Chavo Jr, Eddie's nephew, debuted in Mexico in 1994 before coming to WCW in 1996. Eddie wrestled collegiately at the University of New Mexico on an athletic scholarship. Wanting to turn pro, Eddie was trained by his father in a ring he had set up in his backyard in El Paso, TX. It was there that the foundation of Eddie's superior working style was first laid.

After spending time in his family's backyard portraying the art Eddie would start his wrstling carrer at a very young age, moving to the professional circuit at the age of 20 in 1987. He would debut as “Mascara Magica” or “Magic Mask” in Mexico. After teaming with his brothers, Guerrero broke out on his own, crafting his skills in the lucha libre world. Eddie then moved on to Japan, wrestling as Black Tiger. It was there that Guerrero first met good friend Chris Benoit.

In 1994, promoters in Japan saddled him with the Black Tiger gimmick, a foreign heel Tiger Mask-style character.

Back in Mexico, Eddie teamed with El Hijo del Santo as La Pareja Atomica (The Atomic Pair), reviving the tag team their fathers (El Santo and Gory Guerrero) made famous in the 50s and 60s. Eddie formed a friendship with “Love Machine” Art Barr and the two approached promoter Antonio Pena about turning heel and teaming up together.

The idea worked to perfection as Guerrero and Barr turned on El Hijo del Santo and formed the most hated team in Lucha Libre history: La Pareja del terror (The Pair of Terror).

Turning his back on his Mexican heritage, Guerrero donned tights with the stars and stripes, waved the American flag and recruited the likes of Konnan, Louie Spicoli (Rad Radford) and others to form Los Gringos Locos, a Mexican version of the Four Horsemen.

Los Gringos Locos set Mexico on fire in 1994 as the heel clique feuded with every top Mexican star in AAA. Guerrero and Barr won the AAA World tag team titles in Chicago during the summer, defeating El Hijo del Santo and Octagon. Santo and Octagon would garner their revenge in November at When World's Collide from Los Angeles, (AAA's only foray into pay-per-view) defeating Guerrero and Barr in a double mask vs double hair match, forcing Eddie and Barr to have their head shaved bald.

The match would put Starr and Gurrero in the spotlight.

Tragedy, however, struck three weeks later as Art Barr was found dead in his bedroom in Springfield, Oregon.

With Barr out of his life, the value of the Mexican peso at an all time low and AAA complaining about the cost of his contract, Guerrero left Mexico and resurfaced in Extreme Championship Wrestling. On his first night in he defeated 2 Cold Scorpio for the TV title. A week later he had what is widely considered the best match in the history of the promotion, going to a 30-minute draw with Dean Malenko.

Eddie wrestled mainly for Asistencia Asesoria y Administracion (AAA) in Mexico, teaming with Art Barr forming the tag team Los Gringos Locos. They became the most hated team in lucha libre history. They were noticed in late 1994 by the owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling, Paul Heyman, and were to wrestle for him in 1995. Sadly, Art Barr died before he could join ECW with Eddie.

His oldest brother Chavo Gurrero is a legendary junior heavyweight wrestler fueding many times with Japanese legend Atushi Onita, His two older brothers Hector, and Mando weren't as well known as Eddie and Chavo, but nephew Chavo Jr. seemed to fall into to what was close as the same fame as Eddie did.

Eddie then moved on to ECW, where he gained his first full exposure in the United States. Not long after his ECW debut, Guerrero defeated 2 Cold Scorpio for the ECW Television Championship, a title he held twice before moving to WCW. Guerrero's ECW stay will always be remembered for the amazing match he had with Dean Malenko before leaving the promotion.

After the match, which many consider to be one of the greatest ECW matches ever, the crowd showed their appreciation for Guerrero by giving him a standing ovation

While in ECW, Eddie won the ECW World Television Title right away. He also had a series of excellent matches with Dean Malenko before they both jumped to World Championship Wrestilng later that year.

In WCW, he found considerable singles success, winning the United States Heavyweight title in late 1996 and two World Cruiserweight titles in 1997. He was involved in a serious car accident in 1997 that almost cost him his life, but returned to the ring a few months afterwards. He turned heel in 1998, a role which he is best at, judging from his days in AAA in Mexico.He would even formthe LwO a stable matching up against the nwo only with nothing but luch libre wrestlers. Around this time, he became unhappy with WCW management and jumped to the then-WWF in 2000, with Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn.

In WWE, he has been fairly successful, spending time as both a heel and a babyface. But by this time, he developed an addiction to pain medication stemming from his 1997 car accident and was briefly released to enter rehabilitation. He would return several months later back in his old form.

Having returned to the WWE in April, Guerrero won the European Championship from Chris Jericho when Chyna turned on Y2J. The move led to a romantic union between Guerrero and Chyna that lasted through the summer of 2000. However, shortly after Eddie accidentally beat Chyna for the Intercontinental title, a segment of GTV caught Eddie in the shower with two women, crushing Chyna and ending their relationship.

In WWE, he has been fairly successful, spending time as both a heel and a babyface. But by this time, he developed an addiction to pain medication stemming from his 1997 car accident and was briefly released to enter rehabilitation. He would return several months later back in his old form.

Starting in the summer of 2003, he began driving a customized lowrider to ringside as part of his ring entrance. This has become popular enough that he appeared on the cover of the February 2003 issue of Lowrider magazine; he is the first man ever to appear on the cover of that publication. (Normally, the cover includes a lowrider and a bikini-clad woman; the Guerrero cover has the same features but adds him.)

Eddie's inner demons began to get the better of him. In June 2001, Eddie was sent to rehab after showing up "unable to perform." In November, Eddie was arrested for drunk driving and was released from the WWE.

In February 2002, Eddie came back to the spotlight, competing on a WWA pay-per-view "Revolution" where he defeated Psychosis and Juventud Guerrera for the WWA International Cruiserweight title. In March, he competed for New Japan Pro Wrestling.

In April 2002, he returned to WWE television, attacking RVD settingh up two great matches for the IC title, and the title would change hands both times.

Eddie would lose the title back to RVD in a ladder match, but seemed to be on the verge of a feud withSteve Austin before Austin left the WWE. Instead, Eddie teamed with Chris Benoit in a mini-reformation of the Radicals and soon after, the pair jumped from Raw to Smackdown.

While feuding with Edge over the summer of 2002, Eddie began teaming with his nephew Chavo Guerrero, Jr. to form Los Guerreros. The pair won a Triple Threat tag team match at the Survivor Series 2002 to win the WWE tag team titles, edging Benoit/Kurt Angle and Edge/Mysterio.

After a feud with John Cena, Eddie would team with Tairi (subbing for Chavo) to become one-half of the Smackdown brand's tag team champions at Judgement Dayin May 2003. After a month and a half of "cheating to win" (and retain the tag team titles), Eddie and Tajiri would lose the tag team titles to the World's Greatest tag team on July 3rd. After the match, Eddie turned on his partner, blaming Tajiri for the loss.

A week later, the tournament for the vacant United States Heavyweight Championship began and Eddie defeated the Ultimo Dragon, Billy Gunn and (at the Vengeance pay-per-view) Chris Benoit to win the tournament and the title.

On September 16, 2003, Eddie and Chavo defeated the World's Greatest Tag Team to regain the WWE tag team titles. Eddie was, at once, both the United States Champion and one-half of the WWE tag team Champions. Big Show ended Eddie's dual run as champion by defeating Eddie for the U.S. title at No Mercyin October 2003. Four days later, Chavo and Eddie would lose the tag titles to the Basham Brothers. As Los Guerreros attempted to regain the tag team titles, things began to go downhill between Chavo and Eddie and the two battled each other at the 2004 Royal Rumble.

After winning a mini-Royal Rumble, Eddie found himself the #1 contender to Brock Lesnar's WWE Championship. At No Way Out 2004, Eddie, with some help from Bill Goldberg, beat Lesnar to become the new champion.

After fueding with Angle, and getting by the Big Show, Eddie was targeted by JBL, it seemed Eddie had beaten JBL in a bullrope match, but Smackdown GM Kurt Angle reversed the decision and named JBL the new champion.

After Angle was added back to an active wrestling roster he and Gurrero would compete with Angle defeating Eddie at Summerslam.

He would have one more shot at the belt a fourway match which saw JBL outlast everyone and Eddie would climb back into the tag team ranks, this time joining Rey Mysterio Jr. They would eventually defeat the Basham Brothers to become the WWE Tag Team Champions, and in the spirit of sportsmanship, Eddie and Rey met at WM 21 with Rey getting the win over Eddie.

Something about the loss would get to Eddie as weeks later they would lose the Titles to MNM, and in the rematch clause Eddie walked out on the match, and out on REy Mysterio. Eddie would turn heel weeks later, attacking REy and REy would then win two more matches over Eddie, realizing he might not be able to beat REy fairly, Eddie went after REy's son Dominic threatning to reveal a secret that would destroy Rey.

Eddie faced Rey the G.B.A. saying that he would forget about the secret if Rey could defeat him one more time. Rey came out victorious, only to have Eddie reveal the secret (that he was Dominic's father) anyways. After social workers became involved, Rey met and defeated Eddie at Sumerslam (with help from Eddie's wife) in a ladder match for custody of Dominic.

Eddie would finally defeat Rey in a cage match on Smackdown in September. He would then be named number one contender for Batista's WWE title, he would team with Batista on several occasions before Batista would beat Eddie at No Mercy.

They would comepte together a few more times before tragedy would strike. Eddie Guerrero would pass away in his hotel room, sadly ending a good man's life, and one of the greatest carrers in professional sports.

Eddie was far ahead of his time, and he gave this generation something to believe in wrestling again,anyone who has ever seen him wrestle and states they didn't enjoy themselves would be lying, like him or hate him he was a reason to watch wrestling because he gave all of us what we wanted as fans, more than likely ore than we deserve.

There won't ever be another like Eddie, and when he died a big part of the reason wrestling was so great agian, may have died with him.

But we will all, always remeber all that he was, and all that he did.

Thank You Eddie...

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