The Day Eddie Died

Let me take you back. So it’s Friday night, November 10th 2005 and I’m staying with my godmother Rosa Newkirk after having just moved to Greensboro here in North Carolina. She’s the biggest wrestling fan ever and so am I, and we’re watching WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown. At this time we were currently in the middle of the Raw vs Smackdown Survivor Series storyline and we are fully locked in. Right before the final segment of the show one of our top favorite wrestlers takes the ring, Eddie Guerrero aka Latino Heat.

He faces off against Mr. Kennedy for the advancement to Survivor Series and he beats Mr. Kennedy by doing what Eddie did best: lying, cheating and stealing, just like his ring music theme song says. Of course afterwards Mr. Kennedy took a cheap shot at him to the head and Eddie was kind of out of it for the remainder of the night. Fellow superstar favorite and friend Dave Bautista comes to check on Eddie after his attack and when Bautista asks Eddie if he’s okay Eddie responds with “Yeah, I’m okay”. I had no idea at the time that those would be the last words that I myself and every other wrestling fan would ever hear Eddie speak.

Monday afternoon, November 14th 2005. So I get back to my godmother Rosa’s house after school, anxiously waiting to watch WWE’s Monday Night Raw because after Eddie’s match team Raw had done a lot of damage to team Smackdown and I couldn’t wait to see the end result later. So around 4pm I’m sitting in one of the bedrooms doing my homework when mama Rosa and my godbrother Shelton, who had just woken up from a nap called me to come in the living room. I had overheard them saying someone was dead before I walked in, but didn’t hear who exactly. When I walked in the living room Shelton asked me “Did you know Eddie Guerrero died?”

My heart stopped and my jaw dropped in disbelief. I took a brief pause and asked him where he heard that and he told me he saw it on the news in his bedroom. All mama Rosa and I could do in that brief moment was accept that he was telling the truth in the most painful of ways. The cause of death was revealed to be heart failure. Then I preceded to say allowed that they would most likely be talking about it later on that night on Raw.

At 8:59 pm that night, me, mama Rosa and few other members of the family sat around the tv waiting for Raw to come on. I waited with the most anxiety, unfortunately this anxiety wasn’t the good kind like when you’re waiting for something fun and exciting to happen like I had before. This impatience was me uncomfortably waiting to see if the bad news was true. The anxiety reached its peak while watching the Raw intro and subsided into quiet shock when I saw the entire WWE locker room lined up outside the walkway entrance to the ring in a funeral like manner as the sold out crowd of audience repetitively chanted “EDDIE!!! EDDIE!!! EDDIE!!!”.

WWE chairman Vince McMahon then preceded to address everyone with the news that Eddie had died the day before and that the night’s show would be in honor of him while also remembering him fondly. They then gave Eddie a ten bell salute from the ringside and boy was that heavily heartfelt. After the salute they played a video montage tribute to Eddie as Johnny Cash’s rendition of the song “Hurt” played in the background. Vince McMahon commenced the night’s show with Eddie’s catchphrase “VIVA LA RAZA” and then began the night’s show of a celebratory rollercoaster of emotions.

For the entire night every present superstar paid tribute to Eddie recalling his best moments as a performer and what an honor it was to know him, perform with him and love him. I remember the first match I watched that night was Kurt Angle’s and after he won he took off his Eddie Guerrero wristbands and tearfully held them up in the air as the crowd cheered. In addition to seeing all his closest loved ones who performed with him like his nephew Chavo Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, Booker T, Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit all give heartfelt tributes to him. It was John Cena’s last match of the night that really put the tear on the cheek. Cena was the champ at the time and after he won his match he took off his Eddie Guerrero tribute shirt, laid it in the ring and laid his championship belt on top of it, solidifying the symbol of a champion that was Eddie.

The reason why I remember that day so vividly is because Eddie has always been one of my all time favorite pro wrestling superstars. His energy gave us energy and his performance always brought us joy. You couldn’t not love a night of dope wrestling when Eddie took the ring, who he was and his lineage of the Guerrero family was everything. The craziest part is he died during his prime and his death had an unfortunate ripple effect. For those of us who loved him most it was a hole that could never be refilled.

Four years after Eddie passed away I was still just as big a wrestling fan as ever. More unfortunate tragedy had struck, yet the WWE brand was still ever growing. On October 2nd 2009 Smackdown was having their 10th year celebration show and in the middle of it was an unexpectedly moving tribute to Eddie as the song “Hear Me Now” by Boyce Avenue played in the background. This tribute pulled me by the heartstrings like I never imagined. They played so many great moments from Eddie’s history and they even played highlights from his original tribute show from that fateful day in November of 05’. Seeing that show really made me proud that Eddie’s legacy was still being preserved.

Yesterday, November 13, 2025 marked 20 years since Eddie Guerrero passed away and today, November 14, 2025 marks 20 years since I first watch his Monday night Raw tribute show when it first aired that day when I was just 12 years old in 2005. 20 years later we have never forgotten Eddie Guerrero, his Latino Heat and how much he moved us. He will always be one of my wrestling heroes and one of the greatest superstars in the history of professional wrestling. Viva La Raza Eddie!

~Dedicated to the memory of Eddie Guerrero (October 9, 1967 – November 13, 2005)