Eduardo Gory Guerrero Llanes (October 9, 1967 – November 13, 2005) was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his tenures in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) / World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), along with his appearances in Mexico and Japan. A prominent member of the Guerrero wrestling family, he was the son of first-generation wrestler Gory Guerrero, the brother of Chavo Guerrero, Mando Guerrero, and Héctor Guerrero, the uncle of Chavo Guerrero Jr., and the father of Shaul Guerrero.
Guerrero's gimmick was that of "Latino Heat", a crafty, resourceful wrestler who would do anything to win a match. His catchphrase became "I Lie! I Cheat! I Steal!" and was used in one of his entrance themes; he partly used this phrase in the title of his 2005 autobiography, Cheating Death, Stealing Life. Despite being a heel for most of his career, he was popular in and out of the ring and was at the peak of his career as a face during 2003–2005, becoming the top wrestler on the SmackDown brand in 2004. He experienced various substance abuse problems, including alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers; these real-life issues were sometimes incorporated into his storylines.
Guerrero spent much of his early career wrestling on the Mexican professional wrestling scene and forming a popular tag team with Art Barr. After the death of Barr, Guerrero received his first mainstream exposure in the United States in 1995 by joining ECW and winning the ECW World Television Championship two times. Later that year, Guerrero moved to WCW, where he became WCW United States Heavyweight Champion and WCW Cruiserweight Champion and also led the Latino World Order. He left WCW in 2000 after the company failed to elevate him to a main event spot.
He moved to WWF during the Attitude Era with his WCW colleagues Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn, who formed a group called the Radicalz. Guerrero went on to win the WWF European Championship and WWF Intercontinental Championship before he was released in 2001 due to addiction issues. After being rehired in 2002, he formed Los Guerreros with his nephew Chavo, winning the WWE Tag Team Championship, and established himself on the SmackDown brand. He climbed to main event status and won the WWE Championship, his sole world championship at No Way Out 2004. He lost the title at The Great American Bash later that year, but remained a popular main eventer until his sudden death on November 13, 2005. He was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, AAA Hall of Fame, Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame, and Hardcore Hall of Fame.
Guerrero was born on October 9, 1967, to his parents Herlinda and Gory Guerrero. He was raised in El Paso, Texas alongside his five siblings, where he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School (La Jeff) in 1985. He attended the University of New Mexico, and then New Mexico Highlands University on an athletic scholarship. It was there that Guerrero entered collegiate wrestling, though he dropped out after an ankle injury, then moved to Mexico to train as a professional wrestler. He followed in the footsteps of his brothers and father, who had also wrestled in Mexico. As a boy, he would attend the wrestling promotions held by his father Gory Guerrero at the El Paso County Coliseum. Guerrero's father allowed him and his nephew Chavo to wrestle each other during intermissions.
Guerrero debuted in 1986. In 1989, he appeared with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as a jobber, most notably wrestling Terry Funk. In 1991, he would return for WrestleWar '91, wrestling a dark match, teaming with Ultraman to defeat Huichol and Rudy Boy Gonzalez. Guerrero wrestled as the original "Máscara Mágica" in Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) until his departure in 1992. He then left the company to pursue a career with Asistencia Asesoría y Administración. Although the Máscara Mágica gimmick was popular, CMLL owned the rights to the character. Guerrero then appeared on a televised AAA show as Máscara Mágica, only to then unmask himself along with the aid of his tag team partner that night, Octagón.
Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (1992–1995)
In Mexico, Guerrero wrestled mainly for Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA), teaming with El Hijo del Santo as the new version of La Pareja Atómica (The Atomic Pair), the tag team of Gory Guerrero and El Santo.
After Guerrero turned on Santo and allied with Art Barr as "la Pareja del Terror" ("the Pair of Terror"), the duo became arguably the most hated tag team in lucha libre history. Along with Barr, Konnan, Chicano Power, and Madonna's Boyfriend, Guerrero formed los Gringos Locos ("the Crazy Foreigners"), a villainous stable. Guerrero later said that no matter how many people joined los Gringos Locos, the stable was all about Barr. Locos feuded mostly with El Hijo del Santo and his partner Octagón, eventually ending in a Hair vs. Mask match at the first Lucha pay-per-view in America, When Worlds Collide, which they lost. On July 23, 1994, Guerrero and Barr defeated El Hijo del Santo and Octagón for the AAA World Tag Team Championship in a two-out-of-three falls match in the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois. The titles were vacated in November upon Barr's death.
Guerrero and Barr's first break would come when they were noticed in late-1994 by the owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), Paul Heyman, and were approached about wrestling for him in 1995. Barr, however, died before he could join ECW with Guerrero.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (1992–1996, 1998)
In April 1992, Guerrero began wrestling in Japan for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He participated in the Top of the Super Juniors III tournament, placing seventh with four points. He wrestled his second tour with NJPW in December 1992, where he formed a tag team with El Engendro. In May 1993, he participated in the Top of the Super Juniors IV tournament, this time placing joint second with 12 points.
In 1993, Guerrero adopted the persona of "Black Tiger". In April 1994, he entered the inaugural Super J-Cup, defeating Taka Michinoku in the first round but losing to Wild Pegasus in the quarterfinals. In May 1994, he participated in the inaugural Best of the Super Juniors tournament, again placing joint second with 12 points. In September 1994, he entered a one-night tournament for the vacant IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, defeating El Samurai in the first round but losing to Wild Pegasus in the semi-finals. In October 1994, he entered the Super Grade Jr. Heavyweight Tag League with Great Sasuke as his partner, with the duo losing to Shinjiro Otani and Wild Pegasus in the finals. In November 1994, he took part in NJPW's AAA Lucha World series in which he and other members of the NJPW roster faced various wrestlers from Asistencia, Asesoría y Administración de Espectáculos, culminating in a captain's fall match in which Black Tiger and his team of Black Cat, Norio Honaga, and Wild Pegasus defeated El Hijo del Santo and his team of El Mexicano, Máscara Sagrada, and Perro Aguayo.
In June 1995, Black Tiger participated in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, losing to Wild Pegasus in the semi-finals. In June 1996, he again participated in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, this time winning by defeating Jushin Thunder Liger in the final. He subsequently received a title shot at IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Great Sasuke at The Skydiving-J in Tokyo's Nippon Budokan, but lost the match. He ceased appearing regularly in NJPW in September 1996.
On September 23, 1998, while under contract to World Championship Wrestling, Guerrero (as "Black Tiger") returned to NJPW for a single night as part of its G1 Climax Special event in the Yokohama Arena, teaming with Chris Jericho in an unsuccessful challenge to IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa.
Extreme Championship Wrestling (1995)
Guerrero won the ECW World Television Championship from 2 Cold Scorpio in his debut match for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) on April 8, 1995, at Three Way Dance. He went on to have a series of acclaimed matches with Dean Malenko before they both signed with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) later that year. Guerrero lost the ECW World Television Championship to Malenko on July 21 of that year, but Guerrero regained the title on July 28. Guerrero lost the ECW Television Championship back to 2 Cold Scorpio on August 25. The next day, they had their last match which ended in a draw in a two out of three falls match at the ECW Arena. After the match, the locker room emptied and the two were carried around the ring by their fellow wrestlers while the crowd chanted "please don't go".