Chris Jericho’s recent WWE Network “podcast” with John Cena may have pulled a few too many punches, but his recent online interview with Vickie Guerrero was quite a bit more interesting. Despite being a constant presence on WWE TV for a solid decade, we’ve rarely heard Vickie’s side of the story or thoughts on her time with the company. So, here’s a few interesting tidbits from Vickie’s appearance on Talk Is Jericho…
Most assumed that WWE hired Vickie in order to help her out after the death of her husband Eddie, but according to Vickie, that wasn’t the case.
“I actually didn’t need any help. We had life insurance and we were okay. It was eye opening. I kind of disappeared for a year. I was taking care of the girls. Johnny Ace didn’t approach me until July of the following year. He said, ‘Rey’s doing some stuff, do you want to come in and we’ll see how it is?’ and I was. Yeah, Johnny, but maybe just once or twice and we’re good. Ten years later, I’m still there.”
She talked about her early, shall we say, issues with promos and being kindly chewed out by Dusty Rhodes.
“They gave me a promo, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I went out there and was a deer in the headlights. I got through it and Dusty Rhodes says, ‘Come here honey, we gotta talk. Honey, that sucked so bad, but I still love you.'”
Vickie credits Edge with teaching her how to channel her natural, uh, Vickie-ness and manipulate the audience.
“When I started learning how to manipulate the crowd where the hated me, I loved it.”
Speaking of promo struggles, her “Excuse me!” catchphrase was the result of Vickie screwing up her lines. Vickie lost her place one night, and as she was trying to remember her lines, she kindly asked the audience it they could just excuse her. Of course, being jerky wrestling fans, they just booed her even more, and a instant heat-getter was born.
According to Vickie, Eddie and the rest of the Radicalz (Benoit, Malenko and Saturn) had been talking with Vince for some time before they finally made the jump from WCW to WWF. They even had clandestine meetings leading up to the move.
“When Eddie was jumping over with the Radicalz to come to Raw, the were talking for a while. They were always talking and Eddie would go and visit with Vince, and they had these meetings. I didn’t know what they were about. Eddie kept it quiet because it was such a big deal.”
Speaking of Vince, it sounds like he and Vickie had a very close relationship, although she developed a fine sense for when Vince was about to ask her to do something horrible.
“Vince has been such a wonderful person. He was a big instrument in me knowing I would always be okay. I always knew when he’d want me to do something because he’d never come to talk to me unless there was something I needed to do in the ring. Like when Rey Mysterio gave me the 619 in the wheelchair, or when Undertaker was going to Tombstone me, he’d be like, ‘Vickie, how’s it going?’ and I’d be, ‘Oh, God.’”
She also related what Vince said when she told him she wanted to leave WWE to go back to school…
“He said, ‘I am so proud of you, to be able to leave and be happy leaving. If you’re happy, I’m going to be happy.’”
Jericho asked Vickie about Eddie’s struggles with addiction, which was clearly still a raw subject…
“Well, as we know, Eddie had his demons, being an addict, but he was sober the last four years. So, he’s not on the pills and drinking, but you see his injuries come out in a natural way, his pain and it being hard to walk in the morning, and then he starts seeing the doctors because his back is so messed up, and there’s the voice in my head that say ‘Are you going to be okay?’ I know as a wife, that he wasn’t well.”
She also talked a bit about Eddie’s last day on earth.
“He ran three miles that night before. He went to the gym, he played with the girls, he was just, like, normal Eddie. You’d never think he was hurting.”
Things continued down a dark path as conversation turned to Chris Benoit. Vickie related a somewhat disturbing story about Chris Benoit’s reaction to Eddie’s death…
“Chris went into our house in Phoenix after the funeral, and he went into our bed and just cried like a little kid, and that’s when I knew this is going to be hard.”
She also talked about seeing signs that Benoit might be unraveling…
“I know they fought a lot. Nancy would call me, and they’d be fighting. Of course, I’d think that’s marriage, but when things ended up the way they did, I went, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I wonder if that was the catalyst.
He was isolating himself a lot, and that’s hard. It’s hard to see that because I worked with him. To hear her conversations and see him at work, I was like the middle-man. I wanted to tell him, ‘Talk to me!’ and he’d be so quiet.”
Thankfully, Vickie’s in a good place now, having completed school and found a job in medical administration, but she still does miss some things about the wrestling business…
“That’s a high that no one can take away from you. Aside from all the BS backstage and who’s doing what to who, or what’s going on… when I get inside that ring, nothing else mattered. It was my promo, it was my three minutes to do what I had waited for that whole day to do, and that was the greatest thing I could feel.”
While I hit most of the major points here, the interview is definitely worth checking out as Vickie comes off as an all-round super lovely lady, and she’s actually a lot funnier than you’d expect, given her TV persona. Got any favorite Vickie Guerrero moments or memories? Share ’em below.
via Talk Is Jericho
