During a recent interview with the Two-Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast, Chavo Guerrero Sr. discussed his love for pro wrestling, being trainied within his family and more. Here are some highlights:
On being trained within his family: “The Guerrero Family started with my father Gory Guerrero but we also had a school run by my Uncle (Enrique Llanes) and he was a pro wrestler and was also my mother’s brother. That is actually how my father and my mother met. My father and my Uncle were wrestling against each other and at that time things were pretty much so kayfabe and they respected the way they talked to each other outside the ring so my Uncle invited my father over to his house and that is how he met my mother. So later he had a judo school and we there for about two years in Mexico and we would go back and fourth when my father was a wrestler so we would go from state to state every six months and then head back to Mexico here and there so we did some schooling at the Judo school. We just grew up with it all of our lives and that is all we ever wanted to be. My Dad never forced us but he did say if you are going to do it, you are going to be trained by me.”
On emulating his father while practicing with his brothers: “Mando and I are a year and a half apart and at one time when it was just my sister Mary (the eldest of us all) and Mando we would practice and make rings out of whatever we could. We were already wrestling but we were only playing around. We would do the entrances because we would always go around with my Dad to the matches and he was our hero, our Superman, our idol and our everything. So, in our minds that is what we were going to be. The way he trained us, he didn’t say lets learn to drop kick, he taught us the basics and the amateur (which we loved) and the judo-karate and jiu-jitsu.”
On the home footage WWE has used of his family wrestling: “My father shot that footage with an 8MM camera and Vince (McMahon) kind of edited where most of those people wrestling were from my wrestling team but yeah my Dad would take film of us whenever he was around because he was always wrestling. That footage was shot in North Carolina, El Paso, some of it in Amarillo, Texas, St. Louis, Missouri and some of it was in Mexico and this footage is like a world-wide situation. When Eddie asked me if he can we use it and my Dad had already passed and I think it was Mando is who had the 8MM’s at that point and I sent them to Eddie and said do what you want but remember where it came from. He gave it to Vince for editing and I think he did a good job and helped Eddie out. They returned the tapes and they returned them on DVDs but I never got paid for it but I guess Eddie did. But we really never did think about it because it was just an everyday thing. With my father wrestling it was apart of everyday life and it was normal. I would shine my father’s wrestling shoes and trust me they had to be shiny and would pack his gear with a list because if he got to the arena with missing one shoe or had two different shoes, then you better watch out because you would have been busted for about a week. He was very strict but a perfectionist at that.”
On still working at sixty-seven: “I’m still doing it and I’ll be going to Japan in two weeks at 67 years old and still rolling. I praise God that he still gives me the ability and I still work out and the main thing about it is that I still have fun. It is always fun to get up there and give a good show, not just sit there and use the name. You’ve got to respect your age but you give the people their money’s worth and they will know it and you give them a good match. Who knows maybe another tour here and there, because I am ready for anytime, brother.”