Email This Article - Contact Us - VIP Sign-Up - Back to Home Page

|

When Eddie Guerrero joined Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko in jumping from WCW to WWE at the beginning of 2000, Eddie was still suffering from an injury to his right arm that probably should have kept him out of the ring.

Eddie wanted to prove himself immediately in WWE, though, as he had waited too long to pass up an opportunity to make a great first impression inside a WWE ring.

Unfortunately, Eddie severely injured his left arm in his first WWE match in January 2000. Attempting a frog splash, Eddie tried to over-compensate for his WCW injury and ended up popping the elbow out of his good arm.

"I was afraid that I had burned my bridges," Eddie wrote about his mindset following the injury in his autobiography. "'I screwed up in my first WWE match. Now what am I going to do?'"

It was another setback for Eddie after struggling through the end of his WCW career, but it also turned into a blessing in disguise. While Eddie healed, he was forced to develop a persona.

Early in his career, he watched Art Barr develop the "Love Machine" character that carried their tandem. Eddie was the quiet one with the in-ring skill, then in ECW and WCW, he simply depended on his in-ring work to carry him as a wrestler.

Chris Jericho says on the DVD that when Eddie jumped to WWE, he finally found the missing ingredient to his character that was keeping him from advancing beyond the mid-card in WCW.

"He knew he could standout with his workrate," Jericho said. "When he finally came to WWE, he discovered this whole other side to him, which was this entire persona."

As soon as he got hooked up with Chyna doing the "Latino Heat" gimmick, it opened up his persona. Appropriately enough, the first WWE match on Disc 2 of the Eddie DVD is Eddie vs. Chris Jericho from the WWE Raw on April 3, 2000 when Chyna turned on Jericho and joined Eddie.

This was the night after WrestleMania 2000 where Jericho captured the European Title, then Eddie won it from Jericho in the DVD match. Eddie had a new fire and spunk to his persona that wasn't there in WCW thanks to Vince McMahon's vision, he said in his book.

"God bless him, he's the master of seeing the crowd's response to something relatively small, then making it bigger than life," he wrote. "Before I knew it, I was known as Latino Heat."

Eddie was playing a secondary role to Chyna in terms of how Chyna was presented as the person in the masculine role wearing the pants in the relationship, but Eddie was confident enough to make it work.

"I wasn't bothered about working in the midcard," Eddie wrote in his book. "What was important was that I was going to get an opportunity to elevate myself. That's all I wanted."

He also knew that main event opportunities were coming down the road. Torch Newsletter #589 from February 2000 had a blurb that Triple H, who was slowly coming into political power, was looking forward to working matches with Eddie.

That opportunity came at the end of 2000, but the initial stages of Eddie's WWE career were about character development, something Eddie had slightly focused on, but never explored to the degree WWE wanted him to.

Eddie and Chyna developed great chemistry that helped Eddie find his niche on TV. It worked for both individuals and gave Eddie the confidence to succeed in a different environment when his wrestling skill would only take him so far in WWE.

Tomorrow: Matt Hardy gushes over working with Eddie in June 2000 match. Also, more downfall in Eddie's life.

VIDEO: Eddie Guerrero and Chyna play Twister.



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.

EDDIE GUERRERO DVD REVIEW ARTICLE LIST

-- Day 10 - Personal tragedy with Vickie Guerrero's public commentary.
-- Day 9 - Battle with Juvi; personal issues bubbling below surface.
-- Day 8 - WCW front office issues and vs. Ultimo Dragon.
-- Day 7 - Eddie the in-ring Technician vs. Dean Malenko.
-- Day 6 - Rey Mysterio classic and character adjustment.
-- Day 5 - vs. Chris Jericho and no one cared.
-- Day 4 - Rubbing shoulders with Ric Flair.
-- Day 3 - Stealing the show at Starrcade '95.
-- Day 2 - Breakthrough in ECW - Eddie vs. Dean Malenko.
-- Day 1 - influence of Art Barr; Eddie vs. 2 Cold Scorpio.
-- Intro on DVD review series.

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

For more BREAKING NEWS on WWE, TNA!
VISIT OUR AFFILIATE - PROWRESTLING.NET

For UFC & MMA NEWS & BLOGS:
VISIT OUR SISTER SITE - MMATORCH.COM

Upgrade to PWTORCH VIP: DETAILS & SIGN-UP INFO

(c) 1999-2009 TDH Communications Inc. - All rights reserved.