As a member of the famous Los Guerreros family, Chavo Guerrero was somewhat overlooked in his time. He often stood in the shadow of Uncle Eddie Guerrero, but that didn’t really matter. His entire career can be attributed to his family and how important the concept was to him.
In his career, he became famous as part of a tag team with Eddie Guerrero. While the pair were uncle and nephew, they were more like brothers and they showed it in the ring, becoming tag team champions together as one of the only uncle-nephew duos to reach this feat. He even lost the Cruiserweight Championship to his father, Chavo Classic, in one of the most fun moments in Smackdown history.
In this article, we’ll look at how family impact Chavo Guerrero’s career and what happened to him after his WWE career ended.
Are Chavo and Eddie Guerrero Related?
Chavo Guerrero and Eddie Guerrero are related, with Eddie being his uncle. However, their relationship is so much more than that. The pair are very similar in age and were treated more like cousins during their lives. They trained wrestling together and came up throughout Mexico and into the United States at the same time, solidifying their bond to one another.
The pair grew closer and closer, and you wouldn’t be blamed for mistaking them as brothers. Throughout their time in ECW, WCW and WWE they represented Los Guerreros proudly and made a huge name for themselves in the United States pro-wrestling scene.
Due to how similar in age they were, Chavo and Eddie would often wrestle against each other at wrestling events promoted by Gory Guerrero. They wrestled in the family’s hometown of El Paso and across the border in Mexico, and linked up in the ring hundreds of times over the years, until Eddie’s untimely death.
Eddie’s death hit Chavo hard, especially given the circumstances of how he was found. Chavo Guerrero was interviewed for Dark Side of the Ring in 2020 and stated that Eddie was “barely clinging to life” when he found him. Eddie was passed out in the hotel bathroom with a toothbrush in his hand. He was reportedly alive, but barely clinging to life when Chavo discovered him and called an ambulance to try and save him.
La Familia
2007 to 2009 saw probably the best years creatively that Chavo Guerrero had in the WWE. While his previous career had been entwined with his “brotherhood” with Eddie Guerrero and his friendship with Rey Mysterio, now he was aligning himself with a different king of Familia all together.
The La Familia stable consisted of six people. It started off with just Chavo and Vickie Guerrero – the widow of his cousin Eddie. They were joined by her on-screen husband Edge, who brought in his “Edge Heads” Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins. Bam Neely bookended the stable as the bodyguard to Chavo, helping him keep the ECW Championship during his reign with the belt.
He won the coveted ECW Championship from CM Punk in January 2008, with help from his faction-mate Edge. Edge attacked CM Punk during a No-Disqualification match on ECW to help Chavo to pin Punk and win his first ever World Championship in the company (Well, that’s disputed but that’s a story for another day).
Chavo also helped La Familia in their disputes, proving the group to be a strong family unit. He helped Edge countless times in matches and segments to keep hold of his World Heavyweight Championship. He became a regular whipping boy of The Undertaker and Batista during their feuds with Edge, but always helped his step-Uncle regain his belt when it mattered most.
He finally lost his ECW Championship in impressive fashion at Wrestlemania 24. After winning a pre-show Battle Royale to earn a shot at the belt, Kane defeated the Mexican star in 8 seconds to win the title for the first time in his career. The match was the shortest ever Wrestlemania match, until it was beaten by The Rock vs Erick Rowan at Wrestlemania 32.
However, La Familia came to an explosive end when Edge was revealed to have cheated on Vickie Guerrero. It was revealed at their wedding, by Triple H as part of his “gift” to the couple, that he had been cheating on her with their wedding planner, future WWE Divas Champion Alicia Fox. This put an abrupt stop to La Familia, with Edge making sure it was over by attacking Chavo Guerrero with a Con-Chair-To and pushing Vickie out of her wheelchair (she was attacked a lot, it was a whole thing back then).
After leaving the group, Chavo moved back into singles actions but was never really the same. He was released by the company in 2011 after doing very little of note, aside from being Darren Young’s “Pro” on a season of the NXT Game Show.
Chavo Guerrero’s WWE Debut
Chavo Guerrero’s first match in WWE took place in 2001, during the ill-fated Invasion angle. He was one of the 25 wrestler’s whose WCW contracts were purchased, along with the sale of the company to the WWE. Guerrero wrestled as a heel under the WCW banner as his WWF debut was as part of The Alliance, a combined force of former WCW and ECW wrestlers (also Shane McMahon, Kurt Angle and Steve Austin).
His first televised match was against Essa Rios on an episode of WWF Jacked in July 2001. He had wrestled Billy Kidman on house shows leading up to that moment, but was finally given a chance in a short bout on the show.
He won the match when a Powerbomb almost went wrong, as he tumbled backwards as Rios twisted in the air, almost landing on his neck. Somehow, as he landed Chavo rolled up Essa Rios, pinning him for the win in a three minute match.
His Last Match For The Company
Chavo’s last match in the WWE came wrestling on the NXT Gameshow in June 2011. He was picked as the “pro” to Darren Young, who was designated his “rookie” for the fifth season of NXT.
It was a much different TV show than fans know now. Long before the days of Triple H’s super-indie show that brought the PWG style of wrestling into the mainstream, NXT was the replacement show for the cancelled ECW, which saw it’s final show in 2010.
The show featured a “Pro”, which was an experienced WWE superstar, teaming up with a “Rookie”, a debuting star who just graduated from WWE developmental. The show brought stars like Wade Barrett, Bryan Danielson and Ryback into the mainstream and was a fine addition to the WWE schedule.
Chavo Guerrero’s rookie was Darren Young, who would later go on to become a WWE Tag Team Champion and would be the first ever openly gay WWE superstar in history. He had a good career in WWE and all it started by being tutored by the former ECW Champion in NXT.
Chavo Guerero’s last match was a six-man tag team match on NXT, when he teamed with Darren Young and JTG to take on Yoshi Tatsu, Vladmir Kozlov and Connor O’Brien (who would later go on to be Konnor in The Ascension). In a fifteen minute match, Chavo’s team lost when Yoshi Tatsu pinned JTG after a high kick to the skull.
Chavo would never wrestle again for the WWE and was released by the company later that year.
Is Chavo Guerrero Still Wrestling?
Chavo Guerrero is not retired, and still wrestles on an intermittent basis. Since being released by WWE in 2011, he has wrestled for a number of major companies, including TNA and Lucha Underground, as well as other small independent shows.
He lasted wrestled in 2022, competing in two matches. The most notable was a championship match against fellow Latino Homicide. The two former TNA stars wrestled ECPW for the Outlaw Wrestling Championship. Homicide, the reigning champion, defeated Chavo in the match to retain his title and send the former WWE star packing.
He has also began working as a manager in wrestling, briefly joining up with AEW in 2021. He signed up with the company in order to manage new signing Andrade El Idolo, fresh off leaving the WWE to sign for the company. His official title was “Executive Consultant”, although it did not last long. Andrade turned on him in September 2021 after a match with PAC which would be the last appearance he made in the company.
He moved out to Australia to work on the TV Show “Young Rock”. The show is based on the life of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and has featured many wrestlers in the show before, including Becky Lynch. However, Guerrero began working as Wrestling Coordinator and did not appear as an actor in the show.
