Eddie Guerrero was found dead Sunday morning, November 13, 2005, in his hotel room in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was 38.
No cause of death has been reported, Guerrero is survived by his wife Vickie and three daughters: Shaul, 14, Sherilyn, 9, and Kaylie Marie, 3.
Eddie Guerrero. Photo by Steven Johnson
According to WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Guerrero was found at the Marriott City Center hotel. Police arrived on site around 7:30 a.m. Attempts were made to revive Guerrero, according to a police spokesperson.
At 12:45 pm CT, Vince McMahon and Chavo Guerrero held a press conference in Minneapolis to talk about Guerrero.
During the press conference, Chavo explained that he and Eddie came in from Phoenix the night before, and checked into the hotel around 12:30 a.m. He was scheduled to meet his uncle for breakfast, but got a call instead from hotel security saying that Eddie did not respond to his 7 a.m. wake-up call. Chavo went with security to Eddie’s room, and found him on the floor. A call was then placed to 911.
Tonight’s combined Raw and Smackdown! tapings will be a four-hour tribute to Eddie Guerrero, airing over two nights. During the press conference, Chavo Guerrero confirmed that he will air his thoughts on the show, rather than head home immediately.
Guerrero had an absolutely stellar wrestling career, marked by his ability to deliver athletically competent, emotional, and ultimately awe inspiring performances in the ring. He was the son of the late Gory Guerrero who achieved legendary status in the wrestling rings of Mexico. His older siblings, Chavo, Mando and Hector were also wrestlers. Guerrero achieved success no matter where he wrestled; EMLL, AAA, ECW, WCW and WWE.
The 5-foot-8, 220-pound graduated from Jefferson High School in El Paso in 1985. He seemed destined to follow his older brothers into wrestling.
“Growing up, Eddie [Guerrero] and I dreamed about it. We never wanted to be anything but wrestlers. We had a ring in the backyard and we were inside it all the time,” explained Chavo Guerrero in the WWE book Are We There Yet?.
Eddie, Chavo’s uncle, concurred in an August 2003 interview with his hometown newspaper, the El Paso Times. “Out of my whole life, there were maybe four months that I thought I don’t want to be a wrestler. But I knew what I wanted to do all my life. I grew up watching my dad and my older brothers do it. This is a dream for me.”
The pinnacle of his career came at No Way Out 2004, when he beat Brock Lesnar for the WWE World title. A little more than a month later, one of his best friends in wrestling, Chris Benoit, also ascended to the top of the WWE as World Champion at WrestleMania XX. The two world champions embraced in the ring following Benoit’s victory.
“You know how sometimes a dream seems too far-fetched and unreachable – well WrestleMania XX was one of the moments where I realized that dream. Not only for myself but also for Chris,” Guerrero told England’s Sun newspaper. “Breaking that mould of giants was great – I’ll take a pat on the back for that one. Being a smaller wrestler is something I’ve been dealing with all my life. But it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. And that’s what I’d say about me and Chris.”
Despite his success, it seemed he was constantly fending off his own personal demons in the form of alcohol and drug dependency. Those struggles were told in the DVD Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story.
— Greg Oliver and Corey David Lacroix contributed to this report
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