8 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE SmackDown From 2006

8. The ‘Eddie’s In Hell’ Line Was A Disgrace

There was simply no need for this. No need for it at all.

On the 3 February 2006 SmackDown, Randy Orton told Rey Mysterio the following: “Eddie (Guerrero) ain’t in heaven. Eddie’s down there…in hell”. That promo came a mere 82 days after Guerrero’s death, by the way, and this was done to promote a match between Randy and Rey on a ‘B’ tier pay-per-view. Their No Way Out match was up next.

Listen, both Orton and Mysterio would likely point to Eddie's workhorse 'wrestling first' mentality and say he'd have been cool with the line, but they couldn't possibly know that for sure. The passage of time definitely matters when it comes to this sort of stuff. Being insensitive just a few months removed from someone's death just to promote a match? Nah, that's too much.

WWE were looking for cheap heat here when they really shouldn't have been. They could've had Randy disrespect Rey's tributes to Eddie without the whole 'he's in hell' shock value. This fan knew it was coming when he sat down to binge some of SmackDown's biggest moments from '06, and he was dreading it.

Guerrero didn't die in some bogus wrestling angle. His wasn't an on screen death that was there to be mocked or used as a plot device. A grieving widow (Vickie) and some children had just lost their husband and father for real. Who knows what they were thinking when they tuned in to see Rey pay homage to Eddie then this line spewed forth straight at them?