My Friend Chavo ...

There are wrestlers who have been brought into my life ...

all have made an impression ... some more than others ...

Chavo is one of the latter.

He and his brother Hector ... what a pair ... what different personalities ...

both of them I truly love and respect.

But Chavo ... he is a rebel and thus 'has an attitude' like I mean 'AN ATTITUDE !!'

So ... too ... it has been said of me.

For whatever reason, I have always‘been drawn to him’

and was always interested in getting to know him.

  Hector was 'much easier to deal with' because he was more ‘happy-go-lucky’

and always ‘upbeat’ easier ‘to do business with’...

but 'for me', Chavo was the 'more box office of the two', though as a team too they were great.

But again, we know ‘our Creator’ doesn’t make anyone like a ‘carbon copy’

everyone is totally unique, totally different ... even close brothers.

　

  Chavo is a person 'who will challenge you' ... an ‘in your face challenge’…

didn’t I say ATTITUDE.

  And oh boy ... if he somehow perceives you are in anyway 'prejudiced towards him',

or in anyway slighting him, he is ready to fight.

And Chavo is 'tough' ... no ‘back down in him’ no way !

In the ring too ... NO QUIT or BACKDOWN, he is ready to go.

  If he was 6 foot 6 inches tall, we'd all have to ask his permission

to even come into the dressing room ... that’s how big his heart is…

  Plus he has skills ... as well as heart ... and is highly intelligent and well-educated,

also a coach of amateur wrestling.

  So, our relationship/friendship was a ‘challenge too’... because as I advanced in the business

and became an ‘owner/booker’ in several of the regional territories

I would work with Chavo and book him and he was ‘box office’right angle was money

and he always gave it his all in the ring, and had a good head for finishes and the match.

  But when he was ‘pissed off about something’and ready for a ‘confrontation’

often by the time I got there, he was really starting to boil

and he then would ‘make it like personal’ between us

or that I was ‘against him’or some other deeply personal thing.

And if 'he caught me off guard', he could ‘really get under my skin too’ before I knew it

  ( or if he was drinking, eventually that deep seated anger would start coming out

in little cuts and jabs ... generally just overlooked because I heard the alcohol talking

--- too many times he had looked me in the eyes

and we knew our mutual respect and friendship ... and that was real )

　

  I had made the same commitment concerning Chavo

and the great Mexican athletes in our business … like Jose Lothario for instance,

or even Alex Perez, that I had about the blacks athletes,

that I WANTED TO UNDERSTAND THEM

and to build relationships with them that would elevate them and my business.

  Pepper Gomez was a big star in the business when I started who was good to me

and like Pepper there were Mexican stars who stayed predominately in one territory

such as Rickey Romero in Amarillo, or Puerto Rican stars who stayed predominately in NY.

I hated the fact that the business was so 'racial',

and that so often a Puerto Rican (in the NY territories), or a black wrestler,

or a Mexican wrestler in the Texas or California territories was ‘the token one’

so that if another one was brought in to ‘fill that demographic’

that meant the one there was forced out, or relegated to a lesser role until he just left.

  I’ve even seen some promoters try to ‘pass a Mexican wrestler off as Cuban’

or a Puerto Rican off as Mexican ... because they thought ‘Spanish speaking is all the same’

but do you really think you can fool the people of that nationality or ethnicity??

  But the business was NOT an ‘even playing field', based upon talent

and by that, I mean ‘box office appeal’

  Even in the early 70’s racism was dominate in pro-wrestling

as far as these groups of athletes.

So, as ‘this culture’ had also held so many hostage to racism,

it had deeply ingrained them about the very ignorance of racism, and thus, almost any business

decision then ... they felt (and often were so correct in assuming) had a ‘racial tone’ behind it.

　

I was one who was changing that ‘in my way’… and my record in the business speaks to this…

even though some ignorant people have even labeled me as racist,

but NOT those I worked with ‘black, Puerto Rican, or Mexican’.

Yes…I studied the demographics of our business…

Ernie Ladd as well as Jim Ross really brought me along in this aspect.

  So yes ... if the population had a large Hispanic percentage, I certainly wanted a Mexican

or if in NY, preferably it would be more to Puerto Rican, Florida to Cuban.

  But too even more prejudicial was the way black athletes were treated

and we had huge demographics in all the areas of black viewers of our sport

and in basketball, football, and baseball, the black athletes were dominant

but in wrestling, were 'held back', or used as a ‘token’

  I wanted the best athletes, and the ones who could draw ? had box office appeal…

 

Chavo had it all …

Yes…smaller than many of the Anglo athletes, but again, not in heart or fire.

  Yes too deeply ingrained by the cultural prejudice he fought against for recognition.

  So, even as he and I got to know each other

that 'cultural impression' would dominate his ‘feelings’

and he would also ‘label or tag me’ in that same anti-ID

and feel I was being discriminatory or somehow insulting his pride or manhood.

And thus, often when I would get to a show, and have the whole card to lay out

by the time I would get to having time with him, he was really pissed

and ready to chew my ass out too ... and ‘make it personal’

  And like I said sometimes he would catch me so off guard

that he would really get me pissed too

before I could take that nanosecond to realize with Chavo

I had to try to figure out ‘what really had him set off’… because I KNEW I liked him

and also, even more important, respected him, and that “I wanted to work with him”

  Thus, Chavo and I ‘made it through these situations’without ever finally

'blowing up so damn badly that we'd have gone to fist city', or I’d have fired him ... or both !!

  ( and at times if Hector was also on the card, I’d even use Hector to ‘get him back to reality’)

Now, this may sound to you like just a bunch of ‘bullshit’

but racism and its ignorance has done so damn much harm to people

those discriminated against (and we know the extremes of that)

and those who harbor such ignorance and thus

pass that anger and hatred on down their own lineage ... so this is a HUGE issue.

  And Chavo’s and my friendship, as well as ‘working relationship’ as me

being the owner or the booker of the territory, to survive and flourish, was HUGE.

  And that friendship continues today is so vital and so real, and means so damn much to me

and I know to him too … we truly love and respect each other.

  And in spite of all 'our demons', our self-destructive traits,which we both have,

we are also joined as brothers-in-Christ !

 

And those who know Chavo know he has also fought some ‘substance abuse problems’

but even through that he would call me (even after I had left the business)

and he would stay in touch, because he knows ‘I care for him and respect him !’…

and I count Chavo Guerrero as my friend…

 

And when we (Chavo and me) are called home to Heaven’s rest…

there with Christ…will be NO prejudice…only perfect love and perfect light.

 

Cowboy Bill Watts