Chavo Guerrero recently appeared on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an interview covering all things pro wrestling. Here are the highlights courtesy of ChrisVanVliet.com.
His reaction to Rey Mysterio talking about Eddie Guerrero:
“Look, and I’ve said it before, and Vince 100% believes this, just like Jerry Jarrett, Jeff Jarrett’s father. Real issues create real money. This is nothing that I didn’t do in 2007, it’s the same thing. ‘You want to be a Guerrero, you will never be a Guerrero, you’re jealous of us…’ that whole thing. And people latched onto it. Did they forget? I don’t know. What happened was I did a virtual signing with Nick from Captain’s Corner, and somebody asked if I am happy about Rey Mysterio coming out at WrestleMania with the Los Guerreros’ music, not Eddie Guerrero’s music, Los Guerreros’ music, my voice, Eddie’s voice, we recorded that theme. Viva La Raza, we lie, we cheat, we steal, that was our voice, mine and Eddie’s voice. So I looked at him and he looks at me and I just started playing with it a little bit. Because right before that on the interview I said that I am all about love. I think he gave me a Bud Light, so I was drinking a Bud Light, who are doing the LBTQ thing, and I said I don’t know why everyone is so mad about it. Who cares? If you are cool then you are cool, if you’re a jerk then you’re a jerk. I don’t care what your sexual preference is or your ethnicity or your gender. Then I said this, nobody is listening to that part, they just want to hear what they want to hear. But, so I said that, and kind of tongue in cheek a little bit. I kind of laughed and was like Dominik is probably a Guerrero. It was 100% sarcasm. When we got done, he looks at me, Nick looks at me and he is like wow. I was like come on it was a total work, but he was like it felt so real, people could really jump on that. I was like, just watch. So Nick Hausman texts me and goes hey man, your stuff is all over the news. I’m like what do you mean? He goes New York Post picked it up. I’m like really? I was literally being tongue in cheek and laughing about it and whatever. I’m going hey, I’m sorry that nobody knows who Rey Mysterio Sr. is, you always wanted to be a Guerrero, very tongue in cheek. I text him back and said watch my next Tweet. That was when I said about him wanting to be a Guerrero and using the Guerrero’s name to his own benefit. It could be real. I mean, if I was really, really p*ssed off I could really latch onto it. But people just started going nuts and going crazy. Finally after I started messing with them and messing with them, [I said] Ok guys, hook line and sinker, I was being a heel. One thing that Vince McMahon told me and my dad, talking about Eddie as well, he goes, You know why I like you Guerreros? I’m like why? He goes, Because you aren’t scared of heat! You love it! I’m like of course, me and my dad want to fight our way from the ring to the dressing room every single night and sneak out of the side window. He [Vince] goes Oh I love it! You guys have balls! But it’s the art of heat, and people forget that yes I am doing stuff in Hollywood, but I am still a pro wrestler. That has what has fed my family for over 85 years. For over 85 years wrestling has been the only thing. Now I am doing pro-wrestling stuff in Hollywood, but I am still connected to that world. So I just had a little fun, and still literally people, I just had someone, I could literally go through the tweets. They don’t want to look at the other tweets where I say OK guys, it wasn’t real. They are like yeah, you are just backtracking. Oh my God really? Are you guys that easy? I love wrestling fans because they are that easy. But at the same time it is like guys, come on, really?”
The line between work and shoot being razor thin:
“They want to believe anything that they want to, and I don’t think I know anything else like that except for maybe a soap opera. You know, soap operas start to get people believing like Luke and Laura were really together back in the General Hospital days. I’m going back, that was when we used to watch it and stuff. They want to believe so bad, you know, Eddie and Rey, Eddie and Rey. But wait a minute, you all hated Eddie when he was telling Dominik I’m your papi. You guys hated him but now it’s like oh they were like brothers. I’m like, well they had a fondness of each other, like Rey says. But when people say oh they were like ebay friends, no they weren’t best friends, they were not best friends. I know what you perceive now, but that’s not what that was. Even when Eddie passed away, the day that Eddie passed away Rey found out like everybody else. I didn’t call Rey. I called Chris [Benoit].”
If he was closer to Eddie Guerrero than Rey Mysterio?
“Eddie was my brother. Like we grew up together as brothers. Like he is 3 years apart. We joke because he was my grandfather’s late mistake, and I was my dad’s only mistake. We were both not supposed to be here. But 100% we were like brothers. We grew up like brothers, we fought like brothers, it was a whole thing. He didn’t meet Rey until he was 18 years old. So there is a massive history, 100% we were brothers. We were all close, but you know, it doesn’t say Rey Mysterio on this shirt, it says Eddie and Chavo. I had to put Chavito because of my dad. We might add Dominik, but I don’t think that Rey will make it. You see how fast that is? That is the art of being a heel right there, like oh, he got us again. When I turned on him in 2007, everybody knew that it was going to happen. But because we let it go on for like 3 months, they forgot. So when I ran into the ring and cost Rey the championship, he dropped the championship to Booker T and I hit him with the chair, people are like oh, we forgot, he’s a Guerrero. Well yeah, it’s just the art of perception and the art of heat. And with heat you say stuff that is real. I think that’s a lot of what we are missing today. We want to be mean in the ring but people want to believe, they really really do, and we’ve just seen it. It was that easy.”
On some misunderstood things about Eddie Guerrero:
“Eddie was very gracious. He wore his heart on his sleeve, good and bad. There is a saying in wrestling that the real giant in wrestling was Eddie Guerrero, because when he got mad you could not calm him down. That was because he felt slighted, he gave you his heart and you did something to him and we had to calm him down. I remember one time when we were all out and the singer Baby Bash, somebody had messed with him and we had to calm him down like, Eddie, relax. He really wanted to kill this guy. I remember talking to Bash again recently and [he said] Man, I was scared. I got really scared. But we would grow really fast, me and him were like Bruce Banner and The Incredible Hulk. We are both totally mild mannered until we get really mad.”
Appearing in AEW:
“You know what? That was fun, I had a good time there. It was real quick, we were just getting into what we were starting to do, then Young Rock called for that other season. I knew that it was coming and I told Tony I’ve got to do Young Rock at some point. He told me that we would deal with it when it comes.Then it came and I said look man, this is what I am making over there. He was like ok that’s a lot! But he said go and do what you’ve got to do. It was originally only supposed to be for 2 months, it ended up being 3 months. When I came back, [originally] he said come back and you’ll still have a job here. But when I came back, things changed. I’m still on good terms with those guys.”
On Kerwin White:
“I was a little longer than that [3 weeks], but I wanted to go all the way with that. I wanted to do all of that and Vince loved it. To me, it’s like playing a role on TV or in a movie. So if I am doing that on TV then it is what it is, no one will think twice about it. I kind of think about it that way, not everyone does. They can’t blur the lines.”
On the Ooohh Chavo theme song:
“So when they made me that music, I actually had some other music that I was using in WCW that boiled over there. Kevin Dunn comes up and he goes, Hey, we want to come up with a new theme for you. I’m like Ok. So Jim Johnston came up with something, and when I first heard it I was like hmm, alright, it’s ok. Kevin was like, trust me, it’s going to be good. So I listened to it and of course he was right because now all I hear is Ohh Chavo, bam!”
Being a heat magnet:
“It’s heat man, I know how to get it, I had some good teachers. Eddie was, you forget how good of a heel Eddie was, people hated Eddie. Then when we were doing Los Guerreros, they remembered the funny parts, but at first they hated us. That’s where the whole lie, cheat and steal came from. They would call us every derogatory hispanic name in the book and throw stuff, that’s what we liked. The office would ask us like, why don’t you guys do two double frog splashes as a finish? We are like why? If we do that, they can only clap you. It’s like they suck, but that was a good finish. That’s why we would cheat to win. Every single night when we won and we retained those championships, we did it through cheating. [At first] They hated us. They would boo and boo us out of the building until we went to Vince McMahon and we said, Hey, we have this idea, we want to do some vignettes about some lying, cheating and stealing. [Vince goes] I love it! Let’s do it. We just thought it would be backstage vignettes. No, I was already out in LA, they flew Eddie out and they rented a house in Beverly Hills. We had a shooting crew and we had catering and trailers. I said Eddie, we have got to knock this out of the park. That’s where we filmed the baby that sleeps, stealing the baby bottle one, we did the pool party one, we did one where we would steal the guys’ girls. We did 3 in a single day. We went from being heels where people would boo the heck out of us. When the baby bottle vignette aired, we came out the next week, our music hit, nothing changed, we walked out all greasy and slimy and oiled up, and they cheered us. We were like oh no, we are babyfaces, we messed up. That was not our goal, we wanted to be heels until the very end. We talked to Triple H, Triple H said guys, you got entertaining, you started to make them laugh. Right from there we became babyfaces. We still lied, cheated and stole, but we did it in cute ways.”
Roman Reigns potentially transitioning to Hollywood:
“It’s awesome man, I love it. It’s a tough transition, not everybody gets lucky, not luck, but right place at the right time like Rock and Cena. Those guys, they’re good actors. Dave Bautista is a good actor, they’ve got better and better. I don’t know how good Roman Reigns can be, because I have only seen him play Roman Reigns. Batista has played Drax, serious guys, mean guys, he’s got this range.”
Why he left WWE:
“Eddie had a great mind for the business, he just didn’t want to be on the road anymore. He loved his family a lot, he really really did, and he wanted to be home with his family. I remember before he passed, like 6 months before, I remember him coming to me and saying I don’t want to be here anymore. I said what do you mean? He said I don’t want to wrestle anymore. I said, Dude drop out and do something else. He got real mad, [and said] what am I going to do? What else am I going to do? This is what we do, we wrestle. I said that it doesn’t matter, your family life is more important. What good is it if you are away from your family all of the time? That’s why I left WWE. My kids at the time were 8 and 11 maybe, and I just didn’t want them growing up without a dad. I had already been on the road for 20 years, I didn’t want to be that casualty and divorced from wrestling and the whole thing. Everything you work hard for and you lose it. I didn’t want to get divorced, I didn’t want my kids to grow up without a dad. That’s kind of why I left. It’s funny because they don’t really remember me being gone all the time.”
What he’s grateful for:
“My faith, my family and my health.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
