Passion for Life: Viva la Rasa

My first actual post will be serious and non-sports related. So totally against what I said I would write about. But this is important to me and to a family.

By family, I mean the WWE family. That would be World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the WWF. As in Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, etc.). On Sunday, November 13, 2005 Eddie Guerrero died. Who is Eddie Guerrero and why should you care? He was a great wrestler for almost his entire life. Born in El Paso, TX, Eddie grew up in a wrestling family. His father, uncle, three brothers, nephew, and many a Hispanic cousin all wrestled. Selfishly, he was one of my favorites. He never really got his due in terms of titles or awesome wrestling feuds, but night in night out, he was one of the hardest working, technically sound, all-around great wrestlers in the entire industry.

But that’s not why I’m talking about him. Eddie was a father of two and a husband, a true family man. However, he did not earn the title of “family man” without great heartache and pain. Eddie spent many years addicted to drugs and an alcohol. As in, tore up his family and almost lost everything. Picture one of the lowest point in a person’s life, being stuck in a pit of drugs and alcohol, and that is where you would find Eddie. Eddie, the deadbeat, Mr. Irresponsible, the temperamental guy whose wife should leave him. You want his wife to leave him; you know his life should fall apart. And for Eddie all of this almost happened, and he probably would have told you that it should have happened.

Instead, God had mercy on Eddie, his wife and his kids. Instead of everything falling apart, Eddie was born-again. For the last four years, he has been drug free and sober. In fact, he and his wife celebrated the four-year anniversary of Eddie being clean last week. He has lived the good life, putting his family, his marriage, and his self back together with God’s help and guidance the last four years. He constantly spoke of his faith with other wrestlers, which is no small feat. Somehow I doubt the wrestling industry is full of men and women who are looking to be saved, but Eddie not only stood out in his faith, but was loved because of it. After his death, many personalities of the WWE shows spoke in vignettes between matches on RAW and SMACKDOWN! about Eddie and his life. A number of them mentioned his devotion to his family and his devotion to Jesus. It was clear that each individual knew what Eddie believed in and further loved him because of the joy that such a faith brought not only Eddie, but others as well. He made such an impact on those he was around by being so passionate about Jesus and so open about his problems. Instead of being ridiculed or ostracized, Eddie was embraced and admired for the contentment and joy in his heart. He represented God and glorified Him; as his light shown, he drew others in to love him and love Jesus.

Why did I just tell you all of this? Because it applies to all of us, in my eyes. I hadn’t planned on being so upfront about Jesus in my writing on this blog because some might say it represents a bias. You’re daggum right I’m biased. Go God, go Jesus, 100%. Most professional writers are not allowed to state his or her personal beliefs in a column. Well, I ain’t a pro writer, and this ain’t no professional column. The point is that Eddie made the world a better place. Is it because of the God he believes in? Yes. Is it because he was so personable and easy to talk to and humorous? Yes. But most of all, it is due to his passion. Eddie didn’t just love Jesus a little bit or wrestle a little bit. He was all out, 100% all the time. Even his abuse of drugs and alcohol was all out, and it eventually contributed to his early death at age 38. I find any kind of passion admirable, as do most people. You may not like sports as much as me, but you’re at least more curious about them when you see my passion for them. Same for Eddie. People may not believe in the same things as he did, but they are drawn to him because of his passion for it. The point is, go all out, go balls to the wall. Now if I could only do just what I said…ya know?

If you want to know more about Eddie Guerrero, go to www.wwe.com and search for the DVD about his life. Something like “Lie, Cheat, Steal: the Life of Eddie Guerrero” (it was part of his gimmick, had to be there). I also have the tribute shows from the past week on DVR if interested.

RIP Eddie Guerrero. Your wrestling will be missed, but we’ll miss your passion most of all.


Random thoughts of today:

Josh McRoberts looks nasty for Duke. Oh my, the kid can play and Greg Paulus ain’t half bad either.

How bout some of the embarrassing early season defeats for some “major” conference teams? Va Tech lost to Bowling Green (who lost the next night to Radford!), Miami lost to Air Force in a tournament in Seattle, Charlotte lost to Northwestern & Wyoming in the NABC, and Missouri lost at home to Sam Houston St in the NIT Preseason Tipoff. Yikes. Not reading much into it, but these losses could haunt come March.

College football rivalry weekend is upon us. The Iron Bowl, featuring Auburn and “the place where all men in America go to be gay, Al-a-ba-ma” should be a defensive struggle. Over/under around 25 on that one. Stay up late on the East Coast and check out USC vs Fresno St at 10:15pm EST. Finally, I am praying Penn St doesn’t lose at Michigan St. It looks like such a letdown game, but it can’t happen and ruin the great Joe Pa story this year. Ok fine, Penn St & Ohio St both go down this weekend in the state of Michigan.

Avenged Sevenfold has a cool new song called “Bat Country.” Well, sort of. I think the song may actually suck, but it has some awesome drumming in it.

Song of the day: “Down” by 311, obvi.

That’s about it for now. I could have random thoughts all day, but that would be more annoying than it already is. Thanks for reading this far if you’re here. And if you skipped down to the bottom, then congrats at being an awesome redaer sdrawkcab.

Now can you dig it, suuuuucccckkkaaaa