Wrestling Observer Live Radio Report

[haVoc 0]

Wrestling Observer Live radio report with Bret Hart and Billy Graham/contains info on tapings tonight

 

by Robert Fahrmeier

 

Long Live Eddy

 

Forgive me for any problems in this report, I just learned of Eddy

Guerrero’s passing fifteen minutes before the show came on. I am currently

in shock and kind of shaking right now. I have a lot of memories of Mr.

Guerrero and I’ll get to them at the end of this report.

 

It’s a tough mood tonight as Dave reports the news. This is just bad, and

both Dave and Bryan are in shock. Bryan got the news as he was just waking

up.

 

Eddy Guerrero didn’t have an enemy in the world, and was one of the best of our

life times. His drug problems are an open book, and actually he has a book

coming out soon. As you have probably read already he is suspected of dying of a heart attack

but toxicology and autopsy reports are not in yet. Superstar Billy Graham

will be on after the break to talk about Eddy.

 

(Commercials)

 

Superstar is on the line. Superstar calls it a tragic event and that it’s

just a tough day. Outside of the ring Graham and Guerrero were very close

and Eddy looked up to Graham.

 

Superstar talked to Vicky (Eddy’s wife) this morning, funeral will be at

Billy Graham’s church and will be conducted by Graham and a friend. Vicky

talked to Eddy last night at 2:30 am, and Eddy felt fine. Graham hopes that

it doesn’t turn out to be a brain aneurysm from the chairs shot that Eddy

took.

 

Dave says that if this had happened 4 or 5 years ago, he wouldn’t have been

shocked. Eddy just passed the 4-year anniversary of his sobriety a few days

ago. Superstar compares this to Road Warrior Hawk’s death. Eddy just moved

into a new house in Phoenix days ago. Graham reports a story about how

Guererro ran into Eddy at the Homecoming and talked about the move. They

talked about going out together. It appears that their wives really bonded

because of the bond of similar suffering

 

My signal cuts out but picks up when Graham talks about Vicky buying the

plot for Eddy in Phoenix and buying the plot next to him. Valerie (Billy’s

wife) took the phone call when they found out this morning and was screaming when she found out and told

Billy.

 

Service is 1:30 Wednesday afternoon. Eddy just turned 38 so it’s a big

shock. Graham talks about calling Eddy the day after Guerrero won the world

title and how humble he was, saying, “why would Superstar be calling me?”

Superstar calls Eddy almost humble to a fault.

 

(Commercials)

 

Dave talks about how winning the world title was a breakthrough for Eddy

because of his size. It was a true sign of his dedication and talent. Billy

Graham was a “true mark” for Eddy, and he often just watched Smackdown

to see Eddy work.

 

Someone from the office called Vicky to try to get the funeral as soon as

possible so they could go on the tour, however a number of wrestlers wanted

to stay for the funeral. Some of his closest friends according to Superstar

wanted to fly back with Eddy’s body. The boys were so insistent on attending

the funeral that they forced the company to postpone the European tour.

 

Dave talks about the closeness of Malenko, Guerrero and Benoit, starting

back in Japan and Malenko and Benoit going to Jim Ross to get Eddy help.

Superstar confirms that it was Malenko and Benoit who were flying back with

Eddy’s body.

 

Dave talks about Raw and Smackdown being tribute shows. Bryan chimes in that

so far it’s just been matches and highlights from what he’s heard. Vince is

taking this one very very hard. Dave talks about how hard Eddy worked to get

back in the company. Superstar talks about how Vince loves when guys like

Eddy and Superstar turn their lives around. Vince was mad that Curt Hennig

and Elizabeth could not turn their lives around.

 

Vicky was telling Superstar today how Eddy loved being around the boys in

the locker room. Dave has Bret on the line. Superstar tells Bret

congratulations on his beautiful new wife. Superstar talks about how he

called John Laurinaitis to get the Bret Hart DVD out to him as soon as

possible.

 

Bret talks about how the DVD is a great combination of his career, his

brothers and his dad. Superstar talks about being in a tag match with Stu

Hart, and being beaten up by Stu. Bret calls Graham and Neidhart his dad’s

favorite students. Superstar talks about how when he was in Canada and

benched 550, Stu just hugged

him. We’ll have more with Bret after this.

 

(Commercials)

 

Dave says that Bret could probably relate to Eddy’s story, being the son of

a legend, and his brother’s entering the sport before him.

 

Bret calls the situation a real shame, calling Eddy a hard worker, and just

a good guy. He says that probably no one worked harder than anyone. Bret

said that when they were in WCW together, that he told Benoit that if he and Eddy if he wanted to make it to the top they had to go to the WWF.

 

Talk moves to the DVD. Dave says his favorite part of the documentary was

the old Stampede stuff, which includes matches against Dynamite Kid and with

Stu Hart.

 

Bret says that the audience has really changed from his old days in

Stampede. He says that the screaming fans that were swept up with the

reality are now gone.

 

Dave says that the memories of wrestling of today will not resonate like the

days of old, like the stuff he is writing about with the Crusher. Dave says

that the pace of so much television and so many angles and that people don’t take it seriously anymore.

 

Bret says the belts don’t mean anything anymore. Dave says its not like WCW

at the end, but with two world champions you really just get two

Intercontinental champions and no world champion. Bret says that the honor

of being champion is gone and thinks some kind of bonus should come with

being champion. Bret says that carrying the WCW title was just extra weight

in his bag.

 

Bryan asks about whether Bret knew off the top of his head what matches to

put on from Stampede or if he went through tapes. Bret called up Ross and

got lots of footage, but wanted to focus on the stuff that he did with

Dynamite Kid.

 

Bret was only wrestling for 3 months when the Stampede matches were taped

and that he felt he had a gift at that point that people like Hogan and

Flair didn’t have in their first 3 months.

 

Bret was very happy with how the DVD came out and said that even though he

was reluctant, he talked about how hard under deadline pressure the WWE’s production team pulled this off. We lose the signal with Bret and so…we go to

commercials.

 

(Commercials)

 

Dave recaps Eddy’s death. Bryan talks about how tonight are just tribute

matches and inter-promotional stuff. Including Rey Misterio vs. Shawn

Michaels.

 

Dave asks why Bret decided to do this DVD. Bret says that he didn’t want to

have a DVD that was all about the WWE side of Survivor Series and Owen’s

death. Bret had a conversation with Vince and after Vince told him that the

DVD would be called “Screwed” Bret said he couldn't be a part of it. Vince then scrapped

that idea. Bret had made the decision not to do it, but hadn't told anyone. Then he met a little boy at the Dentist who

was about 5 years old. The boy said Bret was his favorite wrestler. He asked the kid what was his favorite match, realizing he could have only seen them on tape. The boy said he had never seen him wrestle, but knew him from a video game. He then decided that he wanted to have a good

retrospect on his career put out.

 

Bret says that when he talked to Vince before Owen’s funeral, that Vince

told him that he would have a fitting tribute to his career and then it fell apart. After Bret’s

stroke, they kind of buried the ax. He wasn’t happy with WWE using his music

and the screwed angle in storylines in Montreal before SummerSlam but he’s willing to forgive.

 

(News)

 

Just a few minutes ago on the Raw taping Benoit did an interview about Eddy.

Bret talks about how people are pulling him into different directions and

how he feels very honored that all sorts of organizations are asking him to

join them as a commissioner or something but he says that he’s not a

wrestling character and says that he doesn’t want to be like Ted DiBiase and

Rick Rude, and just stand ring side, not being able to take bumps.

 

(Commercials)

 

Dave asks what matches Bret wishes were on the DVD. Bret wishes he could

have had the Saturday Night’s Main Event match again Randy Savage and it was

their only WWE match. Bret says they worked out a better match than what aired

on the TV show, but Vince forced them to change it to a match where Bret

just worked on Randy Savage’s leg.

 

Bret says that during a Survivor Series match he worked for a few seconds

and the crowd was really anticipating it.

 

Dave talks about Bret’s steps in the wrestling industry from opening

matches, to the Hart Foundation, to the Savage match. Bret says that it was

a career highlight because more people watched that show than would watch a

PPV and so he was a television star.

 

Bret says that the best Hart Foundation-British Bulldogs matches were never

taped. Bret talks about how once Terry Funk came up to him after a match and

said that one of their matches was the best tag match he had ever seen.

 

Bryan chimes in and asks about the Canadian Stampede match. Bret says it was

probably just too long and they wanted to focus on 1 on 1 matches. Bret says

that he is glad that the Hakushi matches got on there. Bret talks about a

somersault Hakushi did in a Raw match that was just amazing, but got cut off

in the documentary. Bret says that the Iron Man match was cut due to time,

and plus he wanted to focus on matches that were forgotten about.

 

Dave asks if Bret has read the Shawn Michaels book. Bret has not and Dave

proceeds to read an excerpt talking about dreading working with Bret in the

weeks leading up to Survivor Series. Shawn talks about how he was working

the main event and Bret as the champion was working tag matches. (There is

just so much in this book excerpt that you really have to listen to the

rebroadcast of this show just for that.) Shawn talks about in the book how

the personal animosity between Bret and he blended well with the storyline.

 

(Commercials)

 

Bret says that Shawn leaves out when in San Jose, Bret pulled Shawn aside

and apologized for the altercations they have had, and how Bret said Shawn

could trust him and would be glad to put him over if and when asked. Shawn told him “I appreciate that, but I am not

willing to do the same for you” Bret says that no world champion would have dropped their title to someone

telling them that.

 

Bret says that when Vince told them that Shawn was getting the belt, Shawn

started to cry. Bret says that the only ones Shawn cared about were the

people who took care of him. Bret says that Triple H and Chyna were the ones

who saved Shawn’s life.

 

Bryan asks Bret’s opinion on Vince Russo. Bret says that the DX thing worked

out.

 

Dave reads an excerpt about how Shawn thought he was the white-hot heel that

they had to put the belt on for Steve Austin to beat. Shawn talks about the

Wednesday before Survivor Series and the conference call that he had with

Vince. Hunter said that Bret not wanting to lose the title was bull and

tried to smooth talk Vince into not letting Bret win in Montreal. Basically

the gist of the excerpt is that Hunter and Shawn wanted to do the swerve and came up with some of it.

 

Bret says that none of the three are very honest, and says that its bull how

they portrayed it as Bret refusing to drop the belt, and neglecting the fact

that Bret had a month left on his contract for him to lose the title during.

 

Bret says that he was told to call Shawn a homo and that it had no

reflection on his actual feelings, and that he felt at the time it was just stupid for

him to say it.

 

Bret calls Shawn just gutless and not a good Christian. We lose Bret again

and so we go to commercial.

 

(Commercial)

 

Bret was talking to The Rock yesterday and talked about how much respect he

had for Bret, and how much the locker room respected him. Bret said that was

very refreshing, especially considering how Shawn Michaels sees things.

 

Bret says that over the past few years that there was a growing

tradition that the boys also never turned on each other. Bret says that

Shawn was scheming and that he never attacked Shawn’s character, but rather,

his wrestling character. Bret says that it really got under Shawn’s skin how

serious Bret was. Bret says that he feels that he could have really passed

the torch to Shawn but Shawn wanted to bury Bret

 

Bryan asks about brawl in June of 1997. Bret said after the “sunny days”

comment, the storyline bled over into the real world, effecting his family,

and kids. Bret says that Shawn never apologized for those comments, and so

after King of the Ring, he decided to attack in Hartford. Jim Neidhart tried

to talk him out of it. Bret let it go, and in the locker room, Bret joked,

Shawn made a smart-ass remark and later they had a sort of catfight with

Bret pulling Shawn’s hair out and Pat Patterson and Jerry Lawler trying to pull

them apart.

 

Dave talks about Shawn realizing when he could screw Bret. Shawn says that

he had no idea Vince would come to the ring. He locked eyes with Earl and

told him to ring the bell. (So it was Shawn calling for it.)

 

Shawn talks about Hunter being punched on the way to the hotel, and how they

went back and said, “we did it”

 

Dave basically alludes that in trying to defend himself, Shawn is really

coming off badly. Dave said people never realized how big a part Hunter had in the screw

job. Bret says that Shawn gets a lot of “credit” but Hunter and Shawn

were all rotten guys.

 

Bret says that he was very respected in the locker room, and how Vince lied

to him on every turn, even going so far as being told that Vince was losing so much money they were going to scale back, fire a lot of people, and go back to just

going to go back to touring just the North East.

 

(Commercials)

 

DVD comes out Tuesday, but is available at some Wal-Mart’s (unfortunately

not mine, although I can wait two days.)

 

Dave says that he is glad the DVD came out the way it did, because he was

really worried about it. Bret was too, saying that a lot of bad things came

from that moment. He wishes that he could have finished up his career in

WWF and had more matches with Austin, got to work with Rock and later with Benoit when he came. We are done, and wishes Bret Hart good luck on the success of the DVD.

Next week we have Bill Goldberg.

 

Great show despite the circumstances!

 

Eddy Guerrero meant so much to my life as a wrestling fan. In 1994 I was

jaded by wrestling but still watched it out of habit, and somewhat

enjoyableness. I found out about a local TV station that had wrestling on

five nights a week. One of the promotions they aired was ECW.

 

A Sabu match turned me on to ECW, but that’s another story. The following

year Eddy, Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit came in. The Malenko-Guerrero

Classics made me see wrestling in a whole new light. It wasn’t wrestling for

violence, it was wrestling for art.

 

Dean and Eddy were just so smooth and just beautiful in that match that I

just sat in front of the TV and just stared in awe of these two. I was

officially a WRESTLING fan.

 

Fast forward to nine years later, Wrestlemania 20, when Eddy and Benoit were

in the ring hugging, I will freely admit that I was crying at the pure

emotion.

 

I recently started compiling a list of my 100 favorite matches, and have

been watching them as a sort of count down kind of thing. Eddy appears on 4

of those matches, only out numbered by Benoit’s seven. The Malenko-Guerrero,

2 out of 3 falls match…is #3

 

Anyone who started watching wrestling during ECW’s hot period of 1995 or so,

has witnessed Eddy really grow. Lucha fans, have watched it even more. We

have cried with him, we have smiled with him. We have all seen him during

his highest highs, and we’ve heard and suffered with his lowest lows.

However it is at this time we can just think of our favorite Eduardo

Guerrero Moment, and smile.

 

WrestlingObserver.com

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Great stuff.

[Guest JMA]

That sounds like a great interview.

[Guest xad]

Superstar talked to Vicky (Eddy’s wife) this morning, funeral will be at

Billy Graham’s church and will be conducted by Graham and a friend. Vicky

talked to Eddy last night at 2:30 am, and Eddy felt fine. Graham hopes that

it doesn’t turn out to be a brain aneurysm from the chairs shot that Eddy

took.

Damn! I hope the chair shot wasn't the cause, i remember seeing that and flinching cause it looked so bad, it hit him really hard

[Da Maintenance Man 0]

Superstar talked to Vicky (Eddy’s wife) this morning, funeral will be at

Billy Graham’s church and will be conducted by Graham and a friend. Vicky

talked to Eddy last night at 2:30 am, and Eddy felt fine. Graham hopes that

it doesn’t turn out to be a brain aneurysm from the chairs shot that Eddy

took.

Damn! I hope the chair shot wasn't the cause, i remember seeing that and flinching cause it looked so bad, it hit him really hard

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

To be honest, I saw that chairshot from Kennedy & it didn't really look all that stiff actually. The stiffest chairshot I've ever seen Eddie take was the one JBL gave him at Judgment Day '04. I STILL flinch everytime I see that shit.

[tominator89 0]

It's hard to say, this early, if the chairshot had anything to do with it.

 

If it did then it's amazing Foley is still alive.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Anyone find it slightly amusing that Goldberg is on next week

[CBright7831 0]

Someone should put this out on the net. It sounds good.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Someone should put this out on the net. It sounds good.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bret Hart on WOL

[CBright7831 0]

Someone should put this out on the net. It sounds good.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bret Hart on WOL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>