9 Ways WWE Changed As A Result Of Eddie Guerrero's Death

8. Eddiesploitation And Insensitivity

Fans and wrestling critics were quick to applaud WWE's decisions to pay (rather classy) tribute to the beloved Guerrero as well as their implementation of the Wellness Policy in the weeks following Eddie's passing. Oh, how it all went south... It wasn't long before WWE were using Eddie's death for the purposes of advancing storylines in ways that were far from tasteful. On the November 29th 2005 episode of Smackdown, a little over two weeks after Eddie's passing, Randy Orton beat The Undertaker up with a tire iron, placed him in the boot of the 'Eddie Guerrero memorial lowrider' that was placed on the stage, and then crashed the vehicle into a part of the set. This destroyed the car while also presumably murdering The Undertaker (Orton seemingly confirmed this the following week when he proclaimed that he had 'killed' The Deadman - quite the oxymoron, huh?). So WWE were running a death storyline two weeks after one of their wrestlers had actually died? Classy, but not as classy as their decision to run a WWE Shopzone sale with the tagline 'Viva La Savings!'. Seriously. That is a thing that actually happened. And here's the proof:

Another truly awful example of Eddiesploitation was Orton's (him again) promo on the February 3rd 2006 Smackdown where he told Rey Mysterio that Eddie wasn't in heaven but was, in actual fact, in hell. Considering how close Rey and Eddie were and the fact that Eddie was a deeply spiritual man and born again Christian, this was really, really low on WWE's part, a blatant attempt to draw cheap heat. Eddie's name was all over WWE TV in 2006 and it was rarely brought up unless it was during some tasteless storyline or angle.