How Good Was Eddie Guerrero Actually?

3. Range

Most WWE fans remember Eddie Guerrero as the heel whose cheating was so creative and funny that it became a babyface asset - even his defining babyface characteristic. Even when Eddie took on a more sinister role, in the summer of 2005, and really tried to draw earnest heat the old-fashioned way, WWE fans still cheered him. 

Eddie is primarily remembered for his awesome range in the heel role. He is perhaps the ultimate love-to-hate figure in WWE history. When wrestlers lovingly draw from his work, they revel in his mischief and cocky swagger. 

Eddie was also able to play an earnest and sympathetic babyface to rousing effect. His feud with Brock Lesnar is remembered chiefly for its euphoric conclusion, but Eddie was sensational in the build. He was candid and self-deprecating, endearing himself to the audience, creating a bond that remains forged to this day - but he was so fuelled by belief that, over the course of their face-to-face, he didn’t look as small as Brock Lesnar. This was an incredible piece of work, if you can call it working. The emphasis and intensity in this promo marks it as one of the finest ever cut in a WWE ring. Despite WWE’s reputation as the promotion in which a wrestler finds themselves and refines their persona, Eddie might have performed his best character work for AAA in the early-to-mid 1990s. 

Eddy Guerrero’s performance at WCW/AAA When Worlds Collide is one of the very best ever. As part of Los Gringos Locos alongside Art Barr, Eddy, dressed in red, white, and blue, played up the American side of his ancestry to rile up the natives in Mexico. At When Worlds Collide, emanating from Los Angeles, California, Eddy and Barr performed maniacal swimming gestures to generate a kiln of heat. The entrance is charged at a level you’ll never see again. Guerrero is pelted with such animosity that he can only scream his head off as he almost rips somebody’s arm off when stealing their cardboard sign. It’s the only way he can release the feeling. After then proceeding to work one of the best tag matches ever, Guerrero sells the shame of losing his hair with the most fantastic woe-is-me facial expression. He deserves it. He gives the fans back every penny of the emotional refund. 

He was the coolest guy in the coolest promotion in the world in 1994, and made one of the lamest feel cool a decade later. 

Because people were desperate to project singles stardom onto Guerrero, his tag team work goes vastly underrated. Between Los Gringos Locos and Los Guerreros, Eddie was in one of the best short-lived tag teams ever, and one of the best in Ruthless Aggression WWE. His even more short-lived unit with Chris Jericho in WCW is a true hidden gem, too.

Guerrero could wrestle with the best of them. He could do comedy. He could brawl. He didn’t do plunder all that often, but it would have been a piece of piss for him. 

9.5/10