Chavo Guerrero Jr Talks About When He’ll End Up Retiring, The SmackDown Six, Lucha Underground, More

Former WWE and WCW Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero was recently interviewed by Ring Rust Radio to promote Lucha Underground. You can check out the full interview below

Here are the highlights.

With Lucha Underground, you work in the ring and behind the scenes. At this point in your career, which do you enjoy more and do you feel you will continue working behind the scenes for wrestling companies when your in-ring career eventually comes to an end?

“Absolutely, that is why I am working behind the scenes. The next progression is to get and work behind the scenes, and a lot of people aren’t able to do that. Being able to do that right now is pretty cool. My family has done this before; it’s not like my first time around. My grandfather had his own promotion when he broke off from CMLL. For years he drove and worked the territory of the World Class days. Guys like the Von Erichs would come through and work with him back then. He had it running in Mexico and the United States. If you remember my dad, he was actually a booker at 30 years old for WWA. My family has done this stuff for generations. We have sold tickets, sold programs, took tickets at the door, set up the rings and promoted. We have really done everything that there is in wrestling. The next progression of course is to become an agent. If Eddie hadn’t passed, he would have been doing the same thing. There is just too much knowledge that has been passed down to us for us not to be a part of wrestling somehow. What I am very fortunate of is to be a part of a different kind of wrestling show. What is cool is I get to teach them a little bit of wrestling I know and they are teaching me a bit of TV that they know. So from this I can start my own production company, and I actually already have a couple of reality shows in the works.”

Many regard the greatest period in SmackDown history to be the dominance of the SmackDown Six in 2002, involving yourself, Eddie, Edge, Mysterio, Angle and Benoit. In retrospect, where does that run rank for you in terms of your career accomplishments, and why do you feel like the six of you had such great chemistry?

“Me being part of the Smackdown of that era is awesome. Talking to Paul Heyman and hearing him talk about it is great. He was booking at that time, and we really wanted to compete with Raw. We started kicking Raw’s butt. I remember Michael Cole at one time was calling Raw the “B” show and we got a lot of heat for that. We were supposed to be the “B” show but we started kick the “A” show’s butt, so we were becoming the “A” show. We had the Undertaker, Kennedy and such a great line up on Smackdown. Everybody was just knocking it out of the park. Being part of the Smackdown Six ranks up way high in my career. Working with Eddie was amazing, he was like my brother. We grew up with a ring in our backyard and always wanted to be tag team champions. We never wanted to be the heavyweight champion, we always wanted to be the tag team champions. So for us to win that against the Smackdown Six at Madison Square Garden Survivor Series, that was pretty big for us. After that we decided to set new goals like becoming the heavyweight champion. We both did achieve that, although mine was in ECW, I won’t downplay it. Just being part of that was so awesome. The reason it was so good is we had Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit vs. Eddie and I, and we would literally beat each other up every night in the ring. We tried to out shine each other not by taking the match, but by giving the match. So we had four guys in the ring that were pretty good at the time and then you throw in Rey Mysterio and Edge, that combo appeals to every single fan. One time it was Eddie and me, and we were tagging against Edge and Rey. Hulk Hogan was back and he was hot at the time. He went on right before us and the crowd was going crazy for him. Michael Hayes comes up to us in gorilla position and says, “Sorry we had to do that and that you have to follow that.” I looked at him and told him I would follow that any day of the week. What we offered the people was completely different than what he offers. He is Hulk Hogan and offers a lot, but we just offer a different style. We went out there and killed it. When we got back and Michael just nodded his head like, “You killed it. You did just what you said you were going to do.” We had a lot of confidence at that time. Even if we didn’t know what was going on we just knew that it was going to work out just fine. We have been in the ring so long together that I knew if he wasn’t going to step up, I would and vice versa. Just being a part of that ranks up really high for me. Now with Lucha Underground, it’s ranking really high in my career as a whole new chapter. It’s a brand new show from the ground up, and it’s just taking off. Seeing people believe in what I believed in, and what the guys in El Rey and the staff at Lucha believed in, that we could be great. That belief of we can do this and this can be great is awesome. I don’t even think the big money guys knew what they had. I remember talking to someone and asking if he knew what he had here with Lucha. He was hoping we would be great seeing as he mortgaged his house on it. I told him if I had the chance, I would have bet my house on it too. It’s great to see it come to fruition what we created and it’s not even close to being done. There is so much more coming.”

Daniel Bryan recently announced his retirement from wrestling. When you eventually decide the time is right to retire from the ring, is there an opponent out there you would like to do it against and would you want to win or lose that match?

“It doesn’t really matter if you win or lose as long as you have a great match and give the fans their money’s worth. I’ve won a lot and I have lost a lot, but some of the best matches I have had, I have lost. For Daniel, you feel for him for sure since it is a shoot. No one wants to see their career end like that. I’m happy to see a guy get invested and have that push for a while. Who knows if he would have been remembered this way if he had his whole career or would they have buried him. Everyone remembers his WrestleMania match that he got beat in 18 seconds. There are those days too that he has had. He has had his ups and downs, so let’s not forget that. Will he be embraced as one of the greatest because his career got cut short? You never know. There is no doubt of his ring ability and he was very good in the ring. Now he has finally gotten his recognition, which is always good to see.”