10 Times WWE Forced It Down Our Throats
5. Rey Mysterio, Doing It For Eddie
Eddie Guerrero's death is one of the saddest, most tragic events in pro wrestling history. His was a true redemption story, of a man who took himself to the brink only to drag himself back, overcoming the most pernicious of personal evils on his way to becoming the most beloved star of a generation. When Eddie died, pro wrestling lost something it could never regain.
Which makes it all the more frustrating and despicable that WWE has used his death as the metaphorical horse over the years, flogging and flogging until there’s no flogging left to do, only to continue with the aforementioned flogging. Rey Mysterio’s rise to the World Heavyweight Championship immediately after Eddie’s death came before all the flogging, but it may have been the most glaring example.
Even before Rey Mysterio won the Royal Rumble in 2006, the story was Eddie Guerrero. As Rey came out to celebrate on the next episode of SmackDown, Eddie was mentioned multiple times before Mysterio himself. In case you weren’t aware, Rey was doing this for his friend Eddie, his mentor, his brother. He’s doing it in an Eddie Guerrero shirt, copying Eddie’s poses, occasionally using the frog splash and driver away in a lowrider. Eddie! Eddie!
The story was so lacking in subtlety that as Rey pinned Randy Orton to win the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 22, boos were audible around the audience. Imagine that? Only the sledgehammer that is WWE could create such a scene.