The frogsplash off the cage and how Eddie wrestled by -feel-

Eddie Guerrero was always a “gamer”. Meaning he performed best when the “lights were on bright”.

Before our first big match in Staples Center (the bloodbath) Pat Patterson was trying to help out and when he left the room I asked Eddie what was wrong. Eddie said he didn’t feel what Pat was saying.

Pat had been going over a finish and style of the match that he thought worked, and Eddie didn’t agree. Pat was one of best agents ever and when Eddie mentioned to him he didn’t like the idea Pat asked what Eddie wanted to do-Eddie replied he wanted to go out there and just see what happens.

In fairness, agents pitch ideas for almost every match-some work and some don’t. This is the process-an idea is thrown out to start the debate and then that idea is talked about. It wasn’t like Pat had a bad idea, this is just the process.

Pat agreed with Eddie. I can only think of a few people in the entire business that Pat would have let that happen. We went out for a Championship match main event and didn’t even have the finish-we called every bit of it on the fly. That’s what Eddie loved, and I did as well-one of the reasons Eddie and I got along so well was we saw the business the same way.

Eddie would sit in the back and if you asked him what he wanted to do-he would just be blank. It was all feel to Eddie, he didn’t want to talk about it he just wanted to go do it.

We had followed Undertaker one day in a house show and Taker had one of his standard excellent matches and we were left to close the show.  It’s a tough thing to do to follow a great, hot match-one reason why at big events they put in “fluff” between the main matches.

My idea was to start really hot-jump Eddie and keep the crowd alive. Eddie had a different idea, very different.

We got in the ring and Eddie sent over word to lock up and get a headlock-not what I had in mind but we did. Eddie then (once he could talk to me) said, “bore them”. I immediately knew what he wanted. The match before was so hot and we had to put in 20-30 minutes-no way we could keep them that high for that long. So, we bored them. We sat in the headlock for some time; the crowd came down from their high.

We slowly started to bring them back and then at the end finished with a flurry-the three amigo suplex, the chest thumping, the big comeback and finally the frog splash. We left them all on their feet, and all due to Eddie’s “feel”.

I knew Eddie well; I can guarantee he thought of that only while we were standing out there-everything to Eddie was on the fly.

The frogsplash in the cage match was practiced that afternoon with a crash pad. Eddie missed the mark by several feet-would have seriously hurt me.

Eddie only tried it once in practice-he said that he was fine. I looked at him like he was crazy and told him he may be fine but I’m the crash pad and that miss would have killed me. Eddie laughed and said “Don’t worry, Essie, I’ll take care of you.”

Eddie had put on extra knee and elbow pads for the bump. Eddie was the type that could have practiced all day and not done it right-but the one time that was needed he nailed it. He always just knew how to perform-always.

I have to admit, laying there and seeing this big guy come off the top of a cage to land on me was not the most comfortable thing I have done. Eddie took great care of me-just like he said he would, however, my entire right side went numb (video is on my site as is the Staple Center match highlights).

There is always that short time where you don’t know if you are really hurt or not-the ref asked me if I was OK, I told him yes but that wasn’t true. Eddie came and covered me and asked me if I was OK, I told him also I was fine. We had a short break to ‘sell’ the move and slowly the feeling came back, I knew then I would be OK.

Eddie could not have done it more perfectly, deep down I knew he would.