In my eyes, Eddie Guerrero was the most naturally gifted wrestler of his generation, as well as one of the all-time greats. You can go back and watch an Eddie Guerrero match and no matter how many times youve watched the thing, youll always find something new to like in there, some cool little thing that you never noticed before. He was an artist and the ring was his canvas. We fans were just lucky to watch him work. We didnt get to see Vincent Van Gogh putting fresh paint to the starry night, or Jack Kirby sketching out the very first issue of The Avengers, but we got to watch Eddie Guerrero, amid the manic throes of restless creation, every single night. However, Eddie would not have frog splashed his way into our hearts if it werent for ECW. Eddie Guerrero had been teaming with Love Machine Art Barr (Eddies frog splash was actually adapted from Barrs) as Los Gringos Locos in AAA (Asistencia Asesoría y Administración). It is no exaggeration to say that the pair were the most hated team in Mexico at one point. He had also toured Japan extensively, adopting the identity of Black Tiger, (the enemy of the Tiger Mask character) and learning to properly unleash his inner heel in the process. However, it was in ECW that Guerrero was able to get a foothold in his home country. Although Art Barr tragically died before he could be booked by ECW, Eddie took full advantage of the fact that American fans were at last taking notice of him by engaging in a ferocious series of bouts with Dean Malenko that are still talked about today. He also won the ECW Television Title from 2 Cold Scorpio in another exceptional display (that was also his debut match for the company). In his autobiography, Eddie says of ECW, When I got to ECW, I had no idea how much fun I was going to end up having there. Ill be honest I really wasnt expecting much, and it turned out to be a great experience. That locker room was so crazy. Everybody there was so passionate about wrestling. Eddie only worked at ECW for a couple of months, but he certainly made an impression. He was soon hired by WCW in order make their house shows more exciting. It is no exaggeration to say that Eddie Guerrero, along with others such as Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho, completely changed American wrestling forever around this time. We all know the rest of the story (and if you dont, here it is), Eddie walked out on WCW along with Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko. The foursome was fed up with being the underappreciated workhorses of a bloated and corrupt WCW system, so they jumped ship to the rejuvenated WWF. Eddie became a big star in the WWF. In fact, he was one of the highlights of the Attitude Era and, after finally beating back his drug issues and returning to the company he loved, Eddie Guerrero became the WWE Undisputed Champion at 2004s No Way Out Pay Per View. Of course, Eddie is no longer with us, but he left behind an indelible legacy for us fans to enjoy, a legacy which might not have existed at all were it not for a fearsome Philadelphia-based promotion by the name of Extreme Championship Wrestling.
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
