Eddie Guerrero - Ten years gone. RIP.

[tiger_rick]

Eddie Guerrero died on November 13th 2005. Ten years ago tonight he wrestled his last match defeating Mr. Kennedy at a Smackdown taping.

 

A hell of a lot has happened in the last decade but it still feels like it's flown by. I miss Eddie. I don't genuinely miss many deceased wrestlers, sad though I am at a lot of their deaths but I genuinely miss Latino Heat.

 

He's a guy I grew to absolutely love as a wrestler. Not just because he was brilliant in every way but because of how close his character and his real life were and how his real life battles and "demons" resonated.

 

He was a brilliant wrestler too. One of the very best. His work was great, offense realistic, aggressive and intense and his selling second to none. But he also got it and he could and would do anything from comedy to humiliation and everything in between. I loved his exagerated mannerisms and crazy facials.

 

His death was truly gobsmacking. Not Benoit shocking or as horrifying as Owen's but truly unbelievable. And given everything he'd been through and how well he seemed, just really, really sad.

 

I miss that mullet.

[Onyx2]

Christ, ten years. I admit it took me a long time to get on the Guerrero train, I never really got him in WCW. Once the mamacita stuff kicked in I fell for him completely. And I could watch his "I'm not really unconscious" routine forever. A gifted physical storyteller.

 

Who's his best opponent? I loved his work with Angle, just a great contrast in characters that really sung. I seem to recall a few inventive spots around the ankle lock - foreign object in the boot, undoing the shoelaces...

 

Obvious to say, but such a great talent.

[ElCece]

10 years wow. I still remember finding out about his death very vividly. He's probably my all time favourite and is the one wrestler where I find myself wondering what could have been still.

[Arch Stanton]

Remember hearing the news like it was just last week, which means that the last ten years have just disappeared into thin air for me, but that's another complaint for another thread. An insanely popular wrestler at the time of his death, which has meant that he has stuck in the minds of fans far more so than many others that have passed away. I don't think there were any fans watching WWE in 2005 that weren't mad on Eddie, he had won everybody over from smarks to casuals, kids to adults with his completely infectious personality. He is missed. 

[Liam O'Rourke]

On the 50th show we did, the mailbag one, somebody asked which wrestling death hit us the hardest, and Eddie was almost unanimous. I ended up editing the whole section off the show for time purposes and because it was so utterly depressing to relive that I wasn't sure anybody would want to hear it. The redemption story and the fact that Eddie truly felt like a good guy, regardless of the fact we didn't really know him, but it sure felt like we did, made it a real heartbreaker. Just so much charisma and talent and energy, you watch him back and it just smacks you how absolutely awesome he was in his prime.

[Linus]

Eddie's death was it for me. After he died I stopped watching any new wrestling and then pretty much all wrestling and I didn't miss it at all. I wanted no part of any business that kills it's best and wrestling was the king of that particular shittiness.

 

Guerrero was a special talent. You don't get them often but when you do you can tell they're doing everything in their power to make wrestling special. We need more of them.

 

Plus he was a great bloke. When he came over for Revival he couldn't have done enough for us. Such a loss.

[Undefeated Steak]

I actually didn't watch wrestling during Eddie's rise to the top. I'd just started watching again just a couple of weeks before he passed and I remember seeing the news like it was yesterday. I can appreciate how good he was because he of how universally loved he was. This should be the kick up the arse for me to finally watch those 2002- Smackdowns. 

[DCW]

Remember being at the Raw house show in Dublin the week after his passing, and them doing the 10 bell salute. Was hard not to get choked up. He was such a charismatic wrestler, the type that captured your attention with the little movements and expressions.

 

Such a pity we never got to see him feud with the likes of HBK, Triple H or Taker.

[wandshogun09]

Such a pity we never got to see him feud with the likes of HBK, Triple H or Taker.

Wasn't there a rumour that the plan was for a Shawn Michaels vs Eddie Guerrero match at WrestleMania 22? Or was that just people adding 2 and 2 and coming up with bollocks?

 

I know they were set to be on opposite teams in the Raw vs Smackdown Survivor Series elimination match that year. So if the plan was HBK vs Eddie at Mania, that would've probably been where they started the wheels in motion.

 

Loved Eddie. One of the most entertaining wrestlers I ever saw. I remember when I first saw him in WCW in about 1996 and, while obviously a tremendous wrestler, he was just a bland babyface who looked a bit like Super Mario to me. He had the typical generic WCW stock music for his entrance and proper basic ring attire. In a cruiserweight division full of wacky looking fuckers like La Parka and Psychosis, nothing really stood out to me about Eddie in those days. I think the point where I started seeing him as better than just Nitro cruiserweight opening match fodder was when he wrestled Ric Flair on Nitro in mid '96. It was a great match from what I remember and Eddie looked like a real threat. I think it's the match Flair always mentions where Beefcake came up to him after and said 'What are you doing? You gave him too much' or something.

 

After that I was more of a believer in Eddie but it wasn't until he turned heel in 1997 that I really saw him as something bigger than just another high flyer. He was such a natural little bastard. He got rid of the crap singlet and changed his entrance music from this generic shite;

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=APH1YWVaQJc

 

To this;

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=5X2MNdFkZmQ

 

I love that music. Sounds like some Tony Montana shit. And combined with Eddie's slow saunter and disdainful facial expressions, it just worked in making him look like a right little sleazy cocky twat. Total contrast to the Super Mario phase he was in just months earlier.

 

After that little transformation he was off and running. The stuff with him and Chavo was great fun and then his WWF run was so entertaining once he broke away from the Radicalz and started being Latino Heat.

 

Such a shame how it all ended for him. I couldn't believe it when I heard he'd died. Like others have said, I don't usually feel too affected by wrestler deaths but Eddie was one I was gutted about for a while.

[ColinBollocks]

My wee cousin is starting to get into the wrestling via youtube/network. When I went to see my dear old Mum a couple of weeks back he was in tears. It turns out he just found out Eddie had died. I guess he was watching all the old footage and not having much of a clue it was a decade plus old, despite Michael Cole's beautiful hair and shit goatee.

 

It didn't half being back memories of how crap it was to hear the news myself, while also reminding me of how bloody good Eddie was. 10 years on and my wee cousin thinks he's the greatest.

[Guest]

Was my first wrestling hero. Got into the product from 04 Smackdown (of all things!) as I was one of those povvo kids who didn't have sky sports. I knew most of the wrestlers from people trying the moves out at school and playing the video games. I was right into Undertaker and Rey Mysterio but I felt like I knew them already off all the playground hype and games, but Eddie went under that radar, he was the first to capture me with his energy and charisma on the actual shows. Was proud to have caught his brief run at the top of the card. Started buying all the figures and don't think anyone else got a go with the heavyweight title belt until I grew out of them.

Remember finding out from a forum and just being gobsmacked for ages before I could click the thread. No one in family was a wrestling fan of any sort, got the mickey taken for liking it and by this point the whole thing was getting pretty unfashionable, so I'd always gone into wrestling with a slightly disconnected 'its fake and dumb but its just part of my routine' mindset. So it was a big thing for me to be crying as I wouldn't have given it that much thought how much I valued his presence before that point and that I'd taken it for granted. I found out about Benoit before the murder-suicide stuff came out, and that was heart-sinking but I didn't cry and don't think I would have even if Eddie had lived on and this was the first major wrestling death I had to come to terms with. Think my Mum thought I was a bit emotionally fragile after that but she couldn't understand how much I admired Eddie.

The only other famous death that's bought me to tears was Amy Winehouse cos that's just who I am and I felt really really sorry for her, but nobody else got me full on bawling and I doubt they ever will

 

Sasha Banks is the same age as me and it was touching to hear a similar story from her on Y2J's podcast about Eddie being her first wrestling hero, actually turning up to a house show with a big sign dedicated to Eddie and having the news broke to her by strangers. Think every fan can relate to how shit it was finding that out.

[wandshogun09]

I think what added to the impact of Eddie's death for me was that his story of nearly dying and fighting addiction was so fresh because it was told in detail just the year before when his first DVD came out. Seeing his wife, kids, brothers etc on there talking about him turning his life around. It had such a feel-good ending with him winning the world title and stuff as well.

 

It was such a typically 'wrestling' way to go - on the road, alone in some hotel room. So depressingly shit.

 

On a more positive note, I was just watching some Eddie stuff on YouTube. Forgot all about this;

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=hliBfjluoP4

 

I love Flair's reaction when he realises Eddie had his wallet

[Guest]

I remember being at home and recieving a text message from a mate who told me Eddie had died, he was not the sort to joke about such things (and no one should be either) so i knew it was legit, and i just sat at my pc and cried my eyes out for a good while

 

Never cried at a wrestling death before or after this, Eddie's death hit me hard and i had to take a few days off work, and i considered, like Linus, to stop watching the product. I carried on watching in the end, and became more annoyed when various WWE wrestlers still carried on taking steroids and painkillers even afters Eddies death as evidented by a scandal in 2006 (the name i have forgotten)

Sorry, but how did you explain to your employers you took time off because a wrestler died? Only ever heard this sort of thing for people leaving boy bands, never a celeb dying.

[WyattSheepMask]

Sorry Ralphy, I'm going to have to ask that question too. I can understand being a bit bummed out by it, but to the point of actual tears? And in your case taking leave from work because someone you watch on TV has died? I'm struggling to get my head round it.

 

I'm probably the biggest Henry Rollins fan you'll ever meet, his work has got me through a lot of things in my life. But despite all that, if he was to pass away tomorrow I can't imagine I'm going to shed a tear because I don't know him outside of his section of the entertainment industry

 

Please don't see this as some kind of personal attack on you, I'm not intending for it to come across that way, but I'm struggling to comprehend someone crying their eyes out because someone they watched on TV has passed

[Linus]

People in having different levels of emotional connection to things SHOCK.