Chavo Guerrero Says WrestleMania 24 Quick Match Was Biggest Payday In His Career
Former WWE superstar Chavo Guerrero revealed he got a very big payday for a very short WrestleMania match.
While Chavo Guerrero was not considered a main event level performer in WWE during his ten-year run from 2001 to 2011, he was a valuable member of the roster in the midcard, in the cruiserweight division, and as part of tag teams. In WWE, Chavo was a four-time Cruiserweight Champion, two-time WWE Tag Team Champion with his late uncle Eddie Guerrero and he was ECW Champion as well.
Going into WrestleMania 24 in 2008, the ECW brand really wasn’t doing very well, but still existed. Chavo Guerrero went into the show as the ECW Champion for 67 days when he was met with the challenge of Kane, who won a battle royal to earn the title match.
During the match, Kane appeared behind Chavo Guerrero, the referee let Chavo know, the bell rang and when Chavo charged, Kane caught him with a Chokeslam. Kane covered Chavo and beat him in about 10 or 11 seconds.
In a virtual signing for Captain’s Corner, Chavo Guerrero detailed what happened in that match.
“They were building that match (Chavo versus Kane at WrestleMania 24). What happens (is) when we get to WrestleMania, a lot of the contracts start coming through so let’s say they’re trying to sign Snoop Dogg. Well sometimes, that’s not gonna come through until the day before, the day of sometimes. So, times change all the time, they’re constantly changing.”
“Even though they may have the card set two weeks before or a month before, the day that it gets to WrestleMania, things change a lot. So me and Kane had a match on WrestleMania. We had a great run going on. We had really good chemistry in-ring. So, then, about a week before, they started to shuffle things around and we weren’t on WrestleMania.”
“So me and Kane went to Vince McMahon and said, ‘Hey Vince.’ We had a meeting with him in his office and said, ‘If we’re not on WrestleMania then this championship doesn’t mean anything’ and Vince is like, ‘You’re right, you’re right. Okay, you guys are definitely on.’”
After their plea worked, Chavo Guerrero detailed how the match time was cut significantly on the day of the show.
“So, the week before, we had like eight minute matches. When we got to WrestleMania, Vince called us in. He goes, ‘Guys, I have to cut time. I’m cutting time all over the place. I even cut time from the main event and here shuffling times around.’ So he goes, ‘I can only give you guys two minutes.’ Well I’m like, ‘Two minutes? What are we gonna do in two minutes? No one remembers a two minute match at WrestleMania, nobody.’ So we’re like, ‘Well, what if we say we can do this in, you know, 10, 20 seconds’ and he was like, ‘What? What? That’s great. How can you do that?’”
“So we kind of like, collaboration between all three of us and figured it out and that’s how it happened so, Kane won the Invitational Battle Royal to face the ECW Champion so I didn’t know who I was gonna face until it was Kane and then, I did my whole entrance and I’m watching for Kane and I don’t see him anywhere. He pops up behind me, beats me in eight seconds, if it was that. I’m like, eight seconds, awesome, great. So, I had my gripes, saying he cheated.”
Chavo Guerrero would go on to talk about how they would try to sell the story of what happened.
“I was coming down the ramp and what other match, what other sport can someone just appear — I’m not saying not jump somebody but actually beat them for a title. This shouldn’t even have gone through. He cheated 100 percent, he didn’t wanna face me straight up because he knew I was gonna beat him. Vince loved it, we end up doing it and to this day, that eight seconds, that was the most I ever got paid for one match. It’s true, totally true.”
“By the second, it’s incredible but it’s for the whole match. It was the most I got paid for one match. It was a lot and thank you Jim Ross. But yeah, that was for that and if you break down the second, it was pretty lucrative (he laughed).”
If you’re wondering, Chavo Guerrero did not disclose what that figure was, nor does he have to since it’s a personal thing.
As for the actual time of the match, if you watch it below from the time the bell rang until the time when the referee counted the fall, it was about 11 seconds.