Former WWE and WCW star and current Lucha Underground talent Chavo Guerrero was the special guest on the recent edition of “The Ross Report” podcast, which you can listen to in full at this link. Below are some interview highlights:
On Lucha Underground’s “Dark” Image:
We even colorize it that way. I am involved with a lot of projects on that show. I am a producer on that show so I am involved, giving my opinions for the editing with writing and booking. Even now, going through the colorization of the show. We colorize it almost like a comic book. When you see the first cut to the final cut it is colored differently so, it definitely gives it that comic-book feel, it’s just different.
On the Writer’s of Lucha Underground Having Freedom:
Yeah. He is really good and Chris Roach, and Matt Stowman, everyone contributes. They were all ex-WWE writers. They are really good and it’s amazing when you just let them run and what they come up with. Just the stories are different. We have a very unique interaction with Lucha Underground because it is on the El Rey Network, which is a Robert Rodriguez network. We have a different bosses, and they have different inputs. They let us run with it, and let the writers do their own thing, giving them some freedom. We have a little freedom because we are on our own network that the old WCW and Turner thing, where we are on our own network, so we can get away with certain things than you would on other networks, but of course you still have to run it by the executives, but they let us run with it a little more. If you see the show, we shoot things like a movie with backstage vignettes and that being said, we can suspend your belief a little bit more; I mean, we’ve killed people on the show, and you can’t kill people in wrestling, we have characters that is a dragon that flies away, we have someone who is a space traveler.
On the Lucha Underground Talent:
A lot of the talents we have, they were passed over by many different organizations, but when we got them and I actually, the first season I got these guys and I was blown away by how incredible they were, how could they overlook these guys. Sexy Starr is also a boxer, she has fire in the ring, she can go, she comes from AAA, and has that Lucha Libre background, so one thing that is a little different too; I am in charge of a lot of the wrestling, and I got these guys from AAA, which are so good at Lucha Libre, but they had never been taught how to play to the cameras, stuff that we learned, stuff that you [Ross] taught me, and by getting them a show, and slowing down, letting them know that their facials are everything. If the camera doesn’t catch you, it never happened, and they would say, oh, we didn’t know, no one has ever taught us that. I was trying to get them to sell these moves, sell because they are working too hard, and once they started doing that–they’re still learning it, but man, they have come a long way.
On Eddie Guerrero’s Advice Regarding Working the Crowd:
What happens, and i know because I have been there. I remember being there the first year, third year or fifth year in the business, and feeling people are not reacting, so I have to do more, but that is not always the case. Sometimes it is better to do less. When they see that they are in a long match, sometimes they think that you have to do stuff. One of the greatest advice from Uncle Eddie [Guerrero] is that sometimes you have to bring the people down before you can bring them up. He was one of those guys that when he was in the ring he was so comfortable, and felt uncomfortable sometimes when he was out of the ring, almost like a vice versa kind of deal. I was with Benoit throughout the year before his death, and after Eddie passed, I saw how Benoit felt afterwards. When we started getting really close and rode together, traveled together, and the only time we weren’t together was when he would go to his room and I would go down to my room and we’d meet up for breakfast and to the gym, I guess maybe he felt closer because I was Eddie’s nephew.
To listen to this entire interview, as well as an interview with Bull James on the same podcast, subscribe to the Ross Report only on iTunes.
