Chavo Guerrero Sr.


Salvador Guerrero III, better known as Chavo Guerrero or Chavo Guerrero Sr., and also known during the 21st century as "Chavo Classic", was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his work in Universal Wrestling Federation, American Wrestling Association and World Wrestling Entertainment and for being the father of third generation wrestler Chavo Guerrero Jr. He was the oldest son of Salvador "Gory" Guerrero, and part of the Guerrero wrestling family. He was the oldest WWE Cruiserweight Champion.

Professional wrestling career

Early career

In 1970, Chavo competed for NWA Western States. Guerrero later moved his family to California so he could compete in Los Angeles's NWA Hollywood Wrestling and San Francisco's Big Time Wrestling. In NWA Hollywood, he feuded with Roddy Piper for the NWA Americas Heavyweight Championship. Between 1975 and 1980, he held the title 15 times.

Various Territories

He spent the early 80's splitting his time between All Japan Pro Wrestling, Mid South Wrestling, CWF and Houston Wrestling.
In 1982, Guerrero feuded with Atsushi Onita over the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Championship in All Japan Pro Wrestling.
In 1983, he feuded with Gino Hernandez in Mid South Wrestling. The feud resulted in Loser Leaves Town matches, Texas Death Matches and a Mexican Chicken Match.
In 1984, he teamed with his brother Hector Guerrero in Championship Wrestling from Florida. They had rivalries with The U.S. Express, from whom they captured the NWA United States Tag Team Titles from and The Breakdancers of Brickhouse Brown and Mark Ragin.
In 1985, Hector and Chavo then traveled back over to Mid South Wrestling, where they feuded with The Rock 'n' Roll Express. They then engaged in a rivalry with Ted Dibiase and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams over the UWF Tag Team Championship. In 1986, they wrestled The Fabulous Ones on multiple occasions for Mid South.

AWA

In 1988, Mando and Chavo stopped in the AWA. They went after the AWA World Tag Team Championship held by Diamond Dallas Page's team of Badd Company. However, they were unable to capture the titles in multiple attempts.

EMLL

In 1990, Chavo teamed with his brothers Mando and Eddie in EMLL. He competed with his brothers in multiple trios matches.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2004)

In 2004, Guerrero began working for World Wrestling Entertainment, joining his son Chavo Jr. in a feud with his younger brother Eddie. While with WWE he competed as Chavo Classic and became the oldest WWE Cruiserweight Champion in history, defeating Chavo Jr. and Spike Dudley in a triple threat match. On the April 1 episode of SmackDown, Classic and Chavo Jr. lost to Spike Dudley and Rey Mysterio. In the April 22 episode of SmackDown, Classic and Chavo Jr defeated John Cena in a 2-on-1 handicap match. On the May 11 episode of SmackDown, Chavo Classic defeated Jacqueline thanks to outside help by Chavo Jr. On the June 3 episode of SmackDown, Chavo Classic retained the Cruiserweight Title against Funaki, thanks to outside help from Chavo Jr. He eventually lost the title to Rey Mysterio less than a month later. On June 15, 2004, he was fired by WWE for no-showing multiple SmackDown! house shows.
On the November 15, 2010, "Old School" episode of Raw, Guerrero returned as Chavo Classic, driving Alberto Del Rio to the arena.

Lucha Underground (2016)

Chavo Classic first appeared on Lucha Underground talking with Rey Mysterio about the upcoming match of the latter against his son Chavo Guerrero Jr. in a Loser Leaves Lucha match. During the match, Classic, who was in the attendance, turned on Mysterio, helping his son win the match, but Dario Cueto ordered to restart the match, and Mysterio hit the 619 on Classic and defeated Chavo Guerrero, leaving Lucha Underground without the Guerreros.

Personal life

Chavo was the son of Gory Guerrero and the older brother of Mando, Hector, and Eddie Guerrero. He grew up in El Paso, Texas
He had two children, wrestler Chavo Jr. and daughter Victoria. and he was the brother in-law of Vickie Guerrero.
In July 2016, Guerrero and his son were named part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE. Over a year after his death, US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant dismissed the lawsuit in September 2018.

Death

On February 11, 2017, Guerrero died of liver cancer, at the age of 68.

Other media

In 1978 he co-starred with Henry Winkler in the movie The One and Only as a wrestler called Indian Joe.
He is the subject of the song "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero" by The Mountain Goats and is featured in its music video.
The 2017 Netflix series, GLOW has its 7th episode dedicated to Chavo Guerrero Sr.

Championships and accomplishments