Against The Grain 2.16.09: Mysterio vs. Guererro – 2005

Welcome everyone to Against The Grain, my (bi-weekly) take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. When I saw Matt Hardy talking on a few weeks ago on Smackdown about turning on his long-time partner, best friend, and brother Jeff Hardy at the Royal Rumble, it automatically reminded me of another similar feud in which best friends fought against each other. This one I am referring to is the 2005 rivalry involving Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero. Some intense moments happened (Eddie putting out Rey with a sick suplex on some ring steps), while some questionable ones occurred as well (the whole “Dominic Custody Battle” storyline), but I personally believe as a whole that this near 8-month angle was one of the best feuds that the WWE has ever put on. Today I take everyone back through what all went down during this time, why I think that it’s one of the best feuds, and talk about why I think that it’s somewhat underrated to the casual eye.

So I will start by focusing the retelling of this feud around the main words that were directly said at one point from Mysterio to Guererro that best describes it…

“You Can NEVER Beat Rey Mysterio”

These six words above are the ones that perfectly sums up the 2005 rivalry between real-life best friends Guererro and Mysterio. Before this feud, the two grapplers, who were infamous for being pioneers of bringing the cruiserweight style of wrestling over to the U.S., were no strangers to each other in the ring. In WCW, the two had fought in a number of infamous battles (including the excellent ‘Mask vs. Title’ bout at Halloween Havoc) and had a nice little storyline (Rey joining the LWO [Latino World Order] faction), and in the WWE, the two mixed it up in tag-team action in a series of matches between the team of Edge/Mysterio and Los Guererros (Eddie and Chavo). But strangely, as close and as talented as these two individuals were, the WWE never immediately jumped on the idea of setting up an angle between them. So luckily that changed in 2005.

A little under a year after Eddie Guerrero won the WWE Title, he slowly moved from the world title scene and had teamed up with Rey Mysterio in the tag team ranks. Very shortly after they just got started, the duo had won the tag titles from the Basham Brothers at the No Way Out PPV in a very nice feel-good moment for the two best friends. Afterwards, the two were planning on defending the belts at the following Wrestlemania 21, but instead Eddie (due to some influence from his nephew Chavo) challenged Mysterio to an one-on-one match up in an attempt to tear the house down. And expectedly the two kept to their promise as they put on a short, but sweet, opening bout in which Mysterio pulled out the victory. Rey 1 Eddie 0. (We’ll officially start the fight count here since they were the tag champs together and when the real rivarly began) But with this, it started the “jealously” angle with Guerrero and began the slow burning turnout of this story’s above stated title; simply put…Eddie just can’t beat Rey. So slowly and systematically, the once-beloved team of Guerrero/Mysterio tore apart from the inside out with the stereotypical (in tag team break-up history) “accidental costing of matches” and “questioning of each other’s motives”. After weeks of this, the turn finally happened. A week after losing their belts to the debuting MNM (Johnny Nitro/Joey Mercury), the duo had a rematch in an attempt to regain the titles, but Guererro instead just left Mysterio in the ring to fend for himself while he eerily stared at his partner from the sidelines, only to completely walk away from the match altogether. Another week later, Rey called out Eddie to explain his actions to no avail, and then at the conclusion of the same show, Guerrero came out to “help” his former partner only to put down one of craziest beatdowns I’ve ever seen, leaving Rey with his mask torn, bloody and battered, topped off after an insane looking suplex onto ring steps. So the feud was officially on.

First came their second in a series of match-ups at the Judgment Day PPV. The two again put on a great even more intense bout, but when Mysterio looked like he was going to win, Guerrero bashed Rey in the head with a steel chair, thus costing him the match via DQ. Rey 2 Eddie 0. Further enraged by this, Guerrero again wanted to prove that he can beat Mysterio in the middle of the ring. So once again, the two met up, this time on Smackdown, in a match-up labeled by the announcers as the “Final Encounter” to finally settle their differences. Another excellent bout, another win for Mysterio…and another loss to Eddie. Rey 3 Eddie 0. With a good portion of fans thinking that this feud was finally over, they were mistaken as it was about to get every more crazy. Now officially being “obsessed” with wanting to beat Mysterio in any way, shape, or form, Guerrero started stating out very vague, but strange threats with the keeping of a secret that he knew would harm Mysterio and his family, particularly with his 10-year old son Dominic. So for the 4th time in a row, Rey and Eddie fought again at the Great American Bash PPV with the “secret of Rey” on the line for the winner. Even with the odds against Rey and the prediction that he would finally lose to Eddie…Rey won…AGAIN. Rey 4 Eddie 0. Shockingly Mysterio gained the victory and seemed to be able to keep his secret from being revealed. But true to classic Guerrero form, the man came to Smackdown the week after and said that he lied about keeping his word and revealed the secret anyway.

Now before I get into what transpired next, let me state this for the record. The “Dominic Custody Case” storyline was definitely one of the most silliest angles that I have ever seen. To go from Rey and Eddie fighting over who’s the best in the ring to the two now fighting over a young child may have turned off a lot of people due to its randomness and “soap-opera like” tendencies (i.e. a bad Days of Our Lives or Jerry Springer episode). But as I will explain further, up until this point neither men has had a very significant “main-event” level storyline to work with. Sure Rey may have been a “giant-killer” (pulling upsets over big men like Kevin Nash and Bam Bam Bigelow), a hostage of a faction he didn’t want a part of (the LWO), and have occasionally feuded with high-level stars, but he never had an angle where he had to cut frequent intense promos in the ring. And Eddie, while being at top as WWE Champion, sadly never got a real chance to fully spread his wings as main-eventer due to his title reign being cut short and not having the opportunity to get into a full-fledged, all-out, emotional feud (the one with JBL was close, but never really materialized into anything memorable). With this drawing out of their already fierce rivalry, both men finally got to steal the stage on a regular basis on Smackdown and showed what they can do if given the ball to be in a “main-event level” program. So with this…back to the chaos.

The secret that Eddie’s been keeping was that Rey’s son Dominic was actually his own (insert gasp here). Due to a reasonable, but still kind of silly, explanation involving Eddie giving up Dominic at birth for Rey to have as his own, Guerrero was now demanding that Mysterio would give Dominic back to him…his REAL father. After weeks of the two going at each other’s throats over the small kid in question (in the form of the awesome and creepy promos from Guerrero’s entitled “Eddie’s Bedtime Stories”) Rey proposed that him and Eddie would put Dominic’s custody on the line in a ladder match (…don’t laugh). Eddie accepted and Rey then cut arguably one of the best promos that he’s ever done.

“You’ve beaten addition, Eddie…You’ve beaten the streets…You’ve beaten your past and became WWE Champion…but you haven’t beaten Rey Mysterio! And if take Dominic away from me, then the only thing Dominic is going to know about Eddie Guerrero is that he’s a chickenshit!” …DAMN.

The duo went onto the heavily hyped bout at Summerslam, where, despite the annoying constant camera shots of Dominic at ringside (he only had one look throughout the whole match!) and a couple of missed ladder-related spots, Eddie and Rey put on a hell of an effort. So…guess who won? Rey 5 Eddie 0. With this, the storyline finally concluded with Rey as the decisive winner, but Eddie wanted one last final shot at Rey. So in an excellent cage bout on Smackdown, the two took it to the limit and Eddie, after many months of losing match after match to Rey, FINALLY won and had the absolute last laugh as he pinned Mysterio’s shoulders to the mat for the victory. Rey 5…Eddie 1. Never have I seen a heel take so many straight losses (5 in a freakin’ row) from their main rival and still look like a million bucks in the process due to the displayed hatred and heat they were constantly carrying around.

In conclusion, I found this rivalry to be one of the most intense and interesting feuds that I’ve ever seen before. Witnessing two cruiserweight icons in their own rights rising up to take center stage in a top-level feud akin to heavyweight legends before them like Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock was an awesome thing to behold. Rather than having the two come out of this encounter still looking like the “excellent mid-carders” they’ve been fixed to be, Eddie and Rey now looked like “great main-eventers”. While sadly Guerrero never got a chance to be World Champ again (which was heavily predicted due to his feud with then-champ Batista a little after his win on Rey) due to his untimely death, Mysterio went on become World Champ for his first time at Wrestlemania and dedicated the win to his best friend Eddie. It’s still sad to think of the crazy ass potential Eddie would have had in the permanent main-event scene (cutting sick promos, doing funny and insane storylines). But it’s good to go back to this feud with him and Rey to see them at their best and witness how a true-blue rivalry should be done.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

The Beginning…

Sick Heel Promo from Eddie

Summerslam Ladder Match Promo (includes Rey’s sweet promo on Eddie)

The Final Showdown (Cage Match)

Next Time On….Against The Grain
From “One Night Stand” to “Extreme Rules”. From “Bra and Panties” to “Just Plain Wrestling”. From the “FU” to the “Attitude Adjustment”. A lot of people have been noticing that the WWE is making some minor changes in their content in an attempt at a “TV-PG” rating for their shows. Despite the many worries that the product may be watered down as a result, I will talk about why I strongly believe that this isn’t the case and will talk about why I think that it will actually help improve the product even better.