Chavo Guerrero Says He Pitched Wearing A White Sheet To Get Heat As Kerwin White
Photo by Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for BAMMA USA
Chavo Guerrero recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet and discussed various topics, including Eddie Guerrero’s legacy and the downfall of Lucha Underground. In one highlight, Guerrero shared the original plans for the controversial Kerwin White character, noting that he didn’t really have too much initial input on the gimmick. Guerrero says Vince McMahon came to him with the gimmick before RAW and he explained his thought process, saying if he had to do this he would approach it the right way.
“I came to RAW, and I had Vince McMahon, looks at me and goes, ‘Well, hello, Kerwin.’ And I’m like ‘okay, what is this? So what’s going on?’ ‘Well, today, you’re going to denounce your Spanish heritage, and you’re going to become a white guy, hahaha’ And I was like, alright I have two options. You either say, ‘No,’ and possibly go back on the back burner for a while or get fired. Or you say, ‘Alright let’s do it,’ you know? And at the time, the political climate was different and I literally told Vince, I had a meeting with him, I said, ‘If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right.’ I’m supposed to be a brown guy playing a white guy saying, ‘This is how you white guys are.’ And they’re saying, ‘No.’
“So the Hispanics hated me because I was denouncing my Mexican heritage, I had the whites because I was kind of making fun of them, and they’re like, that’s not how we dress. I’m like, ‘oh yes you do’ and then I was saying, ‘If it’s not white, it’s not right.’ And you know I had Caucasians going, you know, ‘That’s not the way we are.’ See, that’s exactly how you are. So I had everybody hating me. And a true heel wants everybody to hate them. And then I told Vince, I go, ‘Look, at the end of the day, I want to come out in a white sheet.’ And he was like, ‘Oh yes, I love it.’
Guerrero said that McMahon and the creative team didn’t go through with the idea, but he was ready to do it because he wanted to get as much heel heat as he could.
“I wanted to [come out wearing the sheet], absolutely. I grew up in the time of wrestling that, the more heat, the better. I wanted to fight my way back to the dressing room every night. I wanted to have to sneak out the back window.” Chavo explained. I wanted to be in the streets with people yelling ‘We hate you!’ That’s heat, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want them going, ‘Oh hey, there’s Chavo! Hey! What’s up? Can I have an autograph?’ I wanted them to look at me and go, ‘God, we hate you.’ And still to this day—and I was a heel, that’s what you have to do as a heel—I’ll have people contact me on social media and go, ‘You know what? I really hated you when I was younger. You made Rey Mysterio quit, I hated you.’ And then they’re like, ‘I get it now.’ [I say] Thank you, I was doing my job, [and they say] ‘I understand now.’ They hated me so much at the time, but good, that’s what I wanted. That was my job. So If I was gonna do it, I was gonna do it 100%, like I do anything. We never got to that point but I was ready. I would have.”
Guerrero also revealed that when Eddie died, that not only signaled the end of the character, but McMahon sought his opinion on how to handle the episode of RAW after the news broke.
“When Eddie died, we were in Minneapolis for a supershow, Raw and SmackDown show because the whole crew was going overseas to Europe that night I think, or maybe the next morning. And after Eddie passed, actually Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels all came to me at Eddie’s hotel room. And we’re in the hallway, and they were like, ‘What do I do?’ Vince goes, ‘Do I cancel the show?’ And I’m like, absolutely not. Eddie would never have wanted you to cancel the show. The show must go on.”
The full interview can be viewed below:
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