Latino Heat lived up to his name.
Eddie Guerrero was one the biggest stars on SmackDown during the Ruthless Aggression Era. The former WWE Champion captured the hearts of the fans with his in-ring ability and his entertaining antics of lying, cheating and stealing to gain the upper hand in matches.
Eddie Guerrero And Kurt Angle Faced Each Other At WrestleMania 20
The highlight of Guerrero’s career came in 2004, where the Hall of Famer defeated Brock Lesnar at No Way Out to become the new WWE Champion.
While Guerrero’s antics in the ring would usually go unnoticed by the referee, an incident backstage did land Latino Heat in trouble. Following a match with fellow SmackDown six member Kurt Angle, a fight would break out in the locker room. The altercation was witnessed by the man who would go on to defeat Eddie Guerrero for the title, JBL.
Speaking on the Stories With Bradshaw and Briscoe Podcast, John Bradshaw Layfield recalls the time when The Olympic Gold Medalist and Latino Heat were part of a backstage altercation:
“You know a fight’s going on in the locker room … you can tell by the noise, and this was a fight. So finally, [John] Laurinaitis had gotten between Eddie and Kurt. Kurt was outside the dressing room, Eddie was inside it, I was dressing right by Eddie. Laurinaitis shut the door, so that separated Kurt and Eddie. Eddie comes back and sits down, and I could tell by the noise that’s going on that … Eddie had tried to leg dive [him].
With Kurt Angle’s amateur wrestling background being so well known, few would be successful in trying to take down the WWE Hall of Famer. JBL asked Guerrero what he was thinking when trying to do this:
So I’m sitting there looking at Eddie, and he’s not looking at me at all. He’s looking at the door, just mad as he can be, breathing so loud you can hear him breathe. Finally I said ‘Why would you leg dive a gold medalist?’ And without looking at me, he goes ‘Cause I’m stupid!’ That was great. Then he finally started laughing.”
H/t to EWrestlingNews for the use of transcriptions.