WCW dropped the ball with a few future legends when not giving them the opportunity to move into a main event role. Eddie Guerrero is one of a handful of names that turned into top tier main eventer after leaving the company. WWE gave Eddie a better chance to show his full potential, but WCW missed some chances to improve his stature.
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Guerrero had outstanding matches and showed flashes of brilliance in his role. However, there were clearly mistakes and missed opportunities that warrant expanding. WCW only relying on the established legends in the main event scene caused issues for the younger talents. Eddie endured the following mistakes WCW made with him.
10 Debuting With A Generic Face Gimmick
WCW signing Eddie Guerrero was a great moment for the diehard wrestling fans to see him perform in Mexico or in his limited ECW run. However, at least 95% of the audience was watching Eddie for the first time when he signed with the company.
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The problem was that Guerrero started off with a generic face character that was hard to connect with. Eddie smiling and being the over the top generic good guy wasn’t going to get over. WCW wasted some time with this act delivering nothing but good matches with limited character progression.
9 Filthy Animals Love Triangle
The Filthy Animals faction became a fun act in the later years when some of the best cruiserweights united. Billy Kidman, Rey Mysterio, Konnan, Eddie Guerrero and Torrie Wilson were the original members of a face act that fans loved.
However, there was some tension with a strange storyline within the group. Kidman felt disrespected when Eddie flirted with Torrie on a few occasions. This led to them having matches against each before making peace, but it felt like a mistake to impact their chemistry working.
8 Losing Cruiserweight Championship To Ultimo Dragon After Rey Mysterio Feud
The epic rivalry between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio thrived in both WCW and WWE. WCW’s first chapter came in late 1997 with multiple great matches. Everyone still talks about the epic Halloween Havoc 1997 match with Rey winning, but Eddie actually won the feud with their rematches.
WCW saw Guerrero becoming one of the better heel characters on the roster. That made it more surprising when Ultimo Dragon defeated Eddie for the Cruiserweight Championship to end the year. WCW could have continued the strong momentum for Guerrero.
7 Not Forming Tag Team With Chavo Guerrero
One of the more underrated storylines of Eddie Guerrero’s WCW tenure featured his work with his nephew Chavo Guerrero. WCW had Chavo as a face act in the cruiserweight division before his uncle started bullying him.
Eddie forcing Chavo to do his bidding and cheating to win led to a stipulation where Chavo lost and had to follow orders. The story progressed with Chavo losing his mind and even scaring Eddie with his actions, but we never got a full tag run in WCW like the successful Los Guerreros in WWE.
6 Never Feuding With Any Main Eventers
A constant problem for WCW was the lack of opportunities for the rising stars to interact with the main eventers. WCW had names like Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and Booker T waiting too long to move up the card despite their obvious progression.
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Goldberg was the only non-established top star to get any chances to move up the card. Eddie never got the chance to have programs with main eventers until he moved to WWE. The storyline dating Chyna was probably the biggest name to have an angle with him to that point.
5 Eric Bischoff Never Answering His Promo
A rare big moment on the microphone for Eddie Guerrero in WCW featured him cutting a worked shoot promo on Eric Bischoff. Guerrero threw coffee on himself to reference a story that claimed Bischoff did that to him in a meeting.
However, it was more meant to play into the real frustrations that younger talents like Eddie had in WCW with Bischoff not viewing them as stars. This promo sparked the Latino World Order, but WCW dropped the ball by not having Bischoff more involved in the story and segments.
4 Filthy Animals Never Moving Up The Card
WCW found an unlikely success with the Filthy Animals faction getting over together. Eddie Guerrero came back from an injury at the right time to get involved with this group of fellow great cruiserweight wrestlers that happened to be his real-life friends.
Feuds with The Deadpool and Revolution showed the audience getting behind the Filthy Animals as a face act. Unfortunately, they never moved into a main event angle. The biggest name to work with them was Ric Flair, but that was more about a David Flair storyline.
3 Not Having An NWO Vs LWO Story
Eddie Guerrero forming the Latino World Order sparked from his promo calling out Eric Bischoff. The original idea was to play into his anger towards WCW and the nWo, but it turned into just another storyline for the cruiserweight division.
Rey Mysterio being forced to join the LWO was the biggest storyline before Eddie suffered an injury in a car accident to be removed from television. The LWO vs nWo story didn’t pick up until Kevin Nash kicked Konnan out of the New World Order and
2 No Matches With Bret Hart
A huge missed opportunity in WCW was to book a dream match between Bret Hart and Eddie Guerrero. Hart is another name that could say WCW made many mistakes with him, but he worked with many of the better WCW talents for the first time.
Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Benoit all had huge matches with Bret to help their careers moving forward. Hart was a rare legend that liked working with the hungry young talents, but WCW never booked Eddie against him during their time on the roster together.
1 Not Extending Tag Team Run With Chris Jericho
Both Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero would be considered on the short list for the most underutilized talent in WCW. Guerrero and Jericho always did their best in their respective roles and each showed great potential when turning heel.
WCW placed them in a few tag matches together against mutual enemies. The natural chemistry as close friends played out in the ring for some underrated matches. Jericho himself has said that he doesn’t understand why they couldn’t have a longer tag run together since they were clicking perfectly.
