https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9htQLbhCys
If you asked me about the first time I ever saw Eddie Guerrero wrestle, my first instinct would be to respond with one of the more common answers: The match where he and Art Barr lost their hair to El Hijo del Santo and Octagon at AAA When Worlds Collide in 1994. It’s a positively brilliant match, one that not only blew away the lucha libre newbies watching on pay-per-view, but played off years of storylines that long-time fans would know. The match got him his job in ECW, which he parlayed into his WCW run.
When I think deeper about when I first saw Eddie, the real answer is probably one of two other matches. The first would be his famous squash match loss to Terry Funk in WCW in May of 1989. I don’t really remember for sure if I saw it when it aired since I was very young, but I was watching all of WCW’s shows then and I’m pretty sure I did see it. Funk was wrestling his first WCW match since debuting by injuring Ric Flair, and Eddie was brought in as a great working job guy to make him look amazing. Funk being Funk, he gave Eddie a lot, including a gorgeous plancha, before winning the match. Since it was 1989, Eddie was “too small” to hire and not given a second look.
The only other match I would have seen first was from a TV taping for Red Bastien’s WIN promotion, a short-lived lucha libre startup. Mario Savoldi’s ICW promptly lifted matches from WIN shows to craft an “international” tag team tournament in 1990, which included a throwaway Eddie Guerrero match that I know I saw. That’s how I saw a lot of older wrestling for the first time: ICW airing it because reasons.
I became a huge fan of Eddie’s during his ECW run, though unlike most fans, I was partial to his matches with 2 Cold Scorpio over his more famous feud with Dean Malenko. As wonderful as the technical wrestling was in the Malenko matches, the Scorpio matches weren’t run into the ground and  had a more clear babyface/heel dynamic. In WCW, he built upon that by becoming one of the best babyfaces in the  business, even being named the most likable wrestler in the company when they hired research companies to poll the audience.
As he mastered the psychological side of the business more and more, that became his strength. It carried him to a level of stardom in WWE that nobody could have foreseen, especially as his body was breaking down. Not only was his heart on borrowed time as we soon learned, but his back was a wreck to the point he shouldn’t have been able to walk.
I hate to say it, but my reaction when he died was not exactly surprise. He had gotten too muscular and he had a long history of drug abuse. When the coroner listed steroid use as a contributing factor in his death, there was hope that the black and white information would lead to changes. To a point, they did. Days later, another wrestler had a drug-related episode on WWE’s European tour, and the company announced that they’d be resuming drug testing. As much as there’s been skepticism into WWE’s Talent Wellness Program, and rightfully so at times, in the long run, it has been a net positive.
But that’s just a silver lining. It doesn’t bring Eddie Guerrero or anyone else back. There should have never been the pressure on him to get bigger that he had to deal with for his entire career. Has that changed? Probably.
Has it changed enough? I honestly have no idea, and that worries me.
