It’s been 18 years since the passing of WWE legend Eddie Guerrero, and former opponent Brock Lesnar has some touching words about a man he once called his friend.
Guerrero was scheduled to face Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 22 before his death. It was a dream match between two of the world’s best wrestlers, and one of the few matches that every wrestling fans rues that they missed out on.
However, fans did get to see Brock Lesnar vs Eddie Guerrero, in an incredible WWE Championship match.
At No Way Out 2004, Eddie Guerrero made history. With Eddie Guerrero on Brock Lesnar’s shoulders, he reversed the F5 into a DDT on the WWE Championship, before hitting his patented Frog Splash.
As Tazz on commentary cried “Eddie Cheated!”, the Mexican superstar pinned the champion to win his first and only world title in WWE.
It was an emotional moment, one both Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero will never forget. It would be Guerrero’s only world title win in the WWE, as he passed away just one year later.
Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero put on one of the best matches ever at No Way Out, but the bout had a more personal effect on Brock Lesnar, as The Beast revealed in a recent interview.
Brock Lesnar on Eddie Guerrero
Brock Lesnar was a friend to Eddie Guerrero and the two were some of the finest to ever step inside the ring. Thought of as the gruff country boy who “hates people“, Lesnar had a soft spot and still misses the late-Guerrero to this day.
During an interview on The Payoff Podcast, Eddie Guerrero’s widow Vickie talked about the career of Eddie Guerrero, her time with her husband and the legacy the WWE Hall of Famer left in the wrestling business.
She also spoke about the match between Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero.
She revealed that Lesnar could have won the match if he wanted, but as he had one foot out the door (he last match would be against Goldberg at that years Wrestlemania), he wanted put over somebody he respected, like Eddie.
She revealed that Brock Lesnar still speaks to her to this day and that Lesnar told her that he “miss[es] Eddie every day” since his passing.
“Brock could have easily out-jobbed Eddie and just won the whole thing in five minutes but they really wanted to tell a story. Brock gave his one-hundred fifteen percent. It went back and forth and the way Brock was throwing Eddie around, [my daughters] were terrified. They wanted to make this match count. It was pretty special watching the match.
Brock is just amazing. Brock loved Eddie. He’ll hug me and say, ‘I still miss Eddie everyday.’ And that’s just something really special when I get to see Brock.
I was very proud of not only Eddie but Brock and that they were both safe because there’s a lot that runs through your mind. I still thank Brock to this day when I see him because it was because of him that Eddie was able to have that great match. They were dancing in the ring and doing their own dance which was spectacular. Never forgotten.”
Their match together they had was a special one, but clearly not as special as the bond between Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero.
Vickie thinks so too, and even thanks Lesnar to this day for giving Eddie the chance to live his dream and have fun in the ring, which involved “dancing in the ring” and was “spectacular”.
Eddie Guerrero’s last match
Even up to his last match Eddie Guerrero was putting on excellent matches with his signature sense of fun.
Eddie Guerrero would retain his WWE Championship at Wrestlemania XX. He and Kurt Angle would have a five star classic, in which Eddie would take off his boot to escape the Angle Lock and beating Angle in one of the most ingenious finishes in years.
He would have classic matches after that, too. His feud with JBL was a classic, with JBL playing the classic racist heel, even chasing away Mexican immigrants at the border who were trying to sneak into America.
It came to a head at the Great American Bash 2004, where the pair battled in a Texas Bullrope Match. It was a fantastic match featuring more blood than any match I’ve ever seen before. JBL won the bout for the WWE Title, but both came out of it looking like pure stars.
However, that was not Eddie Guerrero’s last match. On November 11, 2005, Eddie Guerrero faced Mr Kennedy on Smackdown, and it became one his most famous for the ingenious ending of the match.
Eddie Guerrero grabbed a chair from outside of the ring while the referee was knocked out and unable to call for a DQ. Setting up Mr Kennedy for a chair shot to the skull, he noticed the referee groggily getting to his feet.
Quickly scheming, he smashed the chair onto the mat, making it sound like he had hit Kennedy with the chair. He then threw the chair into the hands of a puzzled looking Mr Kennedy, who promptly caught the chair as Eddie leapt to the ground in faux-pain.
As the referee got to his feet, he saw the chair in Kennedy’s hand. Putting two and two together (hearing the crash of the chair and then it in Mr Kennedy’s hands) he called for the bell. Eddie Guerrero’s last match ended in victory, as he tricked the referee into thinking he was hit with the chair to get a disqualification victory.
It was an ingenuous move and one of the most entertaining last matches ever. A fitting end for Eddie Guerrero, one of the all time great, at least Brock Lesnar thinks so.
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