TAKE PWTORCH
WITH YOU! Get our iPhone App (FREE!): Click Here Or enter "PWTorch.com" on your Blackberry or other Smart Phone browser for mobile-version of PWTorch.
CALDWELL'S TAKE
CALDWELL'S MEDIA CLUB: Eddie Guerrero DVD review Day 9 - vs. Juventud Guerrera; pre-cursor to personal issues Nov 25, 2008 - 3:57:10 PM
In August 1998, Eddie Guerrero was a year-and-a-half away from making the jump to WWE with Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko.
Looking back a year and a half earlier to February 1997, Eddie was still in the same position as when he was wrestling on the undercard against Chris Jericho at Superbrawl, which I covered in Day 5 of the Eddie DVD review.
At the time in the middle of 1998, WCW was desperately looking for short-term angles to pop interest in the product, with the Jay Lenos, Karl Malones, and Ultimate Warriors of the world being brought into the company to get WCW's name in the mainstream.
The success of the NWO vs. WCW angle that carried the company to record ratings was slowly fading. Meanwhile, the cruiserweights were stuck in the same place. Namely, Eddie Guerrero was delivering good matches on TV, but he wasn't being recognized.
The cover story in Torch Newsletter #506 from August 1998 focused on WWE and WCW battling for PPV dollars with WCW pushing the Leno angle for the Road Wild PPV. The entire focus was on the heavyweight feuds.
From the cover story: "The undercard for Road Wild is merely an afterthought for WCW." That included a Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera match for the Cruiserweight Title, which would follow the Eddie vs. Juvi match I'm looking at today.
For some reason, WWE included this Eddie vs. Juvi match on August 3, 1998. It was merely a middle-of-the-show match on Nitro that went four minutes, featured some good athleticism, and showcased Eddie as the ring general trying to make Juvi look good prior to his title match against Jericho on PPV.
However, after doing some digging around, I believe this is the only singles match between Eddie and Juventud that aired on WCW Nitro or Thunder. An interesting note there, unless there's another match I missed in my research.
The point is that Eddie was believed by his peers to be a ring general who could make an opponent look good to build him up for other opponents. Eddie was in the role of making others look good, yet it didn't seem his time would ever come for someone else to put him over as a top star in WCW.
Looking at the WCW Newswire from the same Torch Newsletter #506, the big news of the day revolved around Nitro ratings, Scott Hall arrested, Ric Flair teasing a departure to WWE, Scott Steiner and Lex Luger upset about the booking, WCW PPV buyrates, and then a little touch on the Eddie & Malenko & Benoit trio's WCW contract negotiations.
Guerrero simply wasn't considered a big deal in WCW. It was about the big names. It was about Hogan, Nash, Hall, Luger, Steiner, Sting, etc. Guerrero had bided his time. He had wrestled on the mid-card for nearly three years at the time in WCW. He had bulked up to carry himself like a heavyweight. Yet, it wasn't enough to get the pub he felt he deserved as one of the top wrestlers in the company.
At what point does discouragement set into place when you're in the same spot as one-and-a-half years ago? In tomorrow's installment of the DVD review series, I'll look at a near-tragic event in Eddie's life and the falling-out with WCW president Eric Bischoff that led to Eddie's infamous "worked shoot" promo on the Aug. 17, 1998 Nitro after Eric Bischoff allegedly threw coffee on Guerrero in a backstage meeting.
Over the course of 25 days, I will be reviewing the "Viva La Raza" Eddie Guerrero DVD recently put out by WWE. I'll be looking at the significance of each of the 25 matches on the DVD as well as establishing the context of events that were occurring at the time of each match.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business...
Compare the value of four or five months of PWTorch VIP content to the price of just one PPV. Can you cut 25 cents a day from your budget to make room for PWTorch VIP?
AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
