Chavo Guerrero Sr. passes away at 68 years old

Salvador “Chavo” Guerrero III, also known as Chavo Sr. and Chavo Classic, passed away today after an illness at the age of 68.

Guerrero was believed to have been suffering from liver cancer and had entered hospice care more than a week ago.

Chavo Guerrero was the son of Mexican wrestling legend Gori Guerrero, and nephew of Enrique Llanes, another 1950s legend. He started his career in 1970 as Gori Guerrero Jr., working for his father in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. He also worked as a wrestling coach. His first full-time territory was Florida in 1974, and although talented, was buried under the incredible talent in the promotion.

He came to California in 1975 as an unknown, but was pushed quickly as a top babyface and immediately became one of the biggest stars in wrestling due to hie exposure on the Spanish International Network (now Univision). Soon, brothers Mando and Hector and father Gori were working regularly in the promotion and were the dominant bnbyfaces. Youngest brother Eddy started wrestling in the late 80s. No matter how much Eddy was praised, he would always insist that Chavo was the best wrestler in the family.

In the mid-to-late 1970s, Chavo Guerrero was best known for a lengthy feud with Roddy Piper that put both men on the map as major wrestling stars. He was also the booker at times, and the Guerreros were the stars of the promotion,

He held the Americas title roughly 15 times and in his prime was one of the best in-ring performers in the world. While he remained a star wrestler, particularly in Japan for his matches with the likes of Tatsumi Fujinami and Atsushi Onita, he never achieved the stardom after leaving Los Angeles. At the 1980 Shea Stadium show headlined by Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zbyszko, a match with Fujinami vs. Guerrero was the best match on the card.

A former college wrestler at the University of Texas at El Paso, he was small and acrobatic based on his time period, and developed the moonsault block as one of his trademark moves, perhaps the first wrestler who worked on top in the U.S. to use it.

He had a run as Chavo Classic in the WWE in 2004, which ended due to him having several issues.

Guerrero was on the Hall of Fame ballot for several years before dropping off. The musical group The Mountain Goats, who grew up as wrestling fans, idolized him and he was the subject of the 2015 song “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero.”

He was wrestling as late as the end of November in Japan, including appearing on the November 27th All Japan show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo.

Only a few people were aware of his illness and he did not want sympathy from anyone at the end and asked that it be kept quiet.