Shaul Guerrero: "I Don't Know That I Will Ever Go Back To WWE"
Shaul Guerrero (fka Raquel Diaz in WWE NXT) was on a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Big Kon (fka Konnor) recently talked during his appearance on the Daily about Guerrero being part of the original Ascension, and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked her about her memories of that time.
"Once a member of The Ascension, always a member of The Ascension, "Guerrero stated. "I was actually supposed to see Konnor this week. We were supposed to do a show in El Paso, TX. Unfortunately it had to get postponed because of COVID reasons so, safety first, but when I saw him on the poster, no one tells me anything.
"I don't know anything until stuff drops on Instagram, but when I saw Konnor on it and Vik, I was like, 'oh my God, we're gonna have an Ascension reunion.' I don't know what's going to happen. I have to do a run in or something and get my manager hat once again. I love Konnor. He helped me learn a lot when we were at FCW."
Big Kon also revealed that WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes' idea of The Ascension was for them to be vampires. Guerrero noted that she enjoyed the concept and talked about how much fun the concept was.
"Well, I was first of all super honored that Dusty wanted me to be a part of this group because obviously, Konnor's extremely talented. We had Epico at the time, and we have, I believe he goes by Bram now, but we had just so many amazing people a part of this team," Guerrero recalled. "Vampire is one of the roles I've always wanted to do as an actress, and so combining that with wrestling was really really cool.
"And I loved it honestly. I had so much fun working with Dusty. This was a special project of Dusty's, and I always loved it though because he's like, 'Now don't say that you're vampires. Just leave it to the imagination,' but we got to film really closely with Dusty for all the promos. And we had the best time. We had so much fun."
Guerrero then talked about how influential Rhodes is in her career. She also noted how influential he is to her family as well helping out her mother, Vickie Guerrero, when she moved to the main roster.
"Absolutely, I don't even think that words can properly describe what Dusty was to so many us, and I've said this in interviews before, I've had a handful of people that were really looking out for me and really believed in what I was doing at FCW and NXT," Shaul said. "And Dusty was one of them and pushed for me and had a lot of confidence in me.
"And I will forever thank him. He was always so honest with me. If something sucked, he told me, and he goes back with our family. He was the one that had really helped my mom when she got brought up on to the main roster to of start her own legacy. So I will forever be indebted to Dusty and always give him that credit."
Hausman asked if Guerrero would like to compete in the Women's Dusty Tag Team Classic. While she stated that she would love to pay homage to Rhodes in any way she can, she admitted that she doesn't know if she can ever return to WWE.
"Of course, I would always love to pay homage to Dusty in any way I can," Guerrero admitted. "I feel like I try to with any promo I cut. I want to make sure I cut a good promo because Dusty's always watching in my eyes. I don't know if I'm ever going to go back to WWE. I feel like when you're in WWE, you are 100% in that company and nothing else can really happen, unless they're okay with it, and I love being a jack-of-all-trades.
"I kind of like being able to wrestle and still professionally dance and still be able to do sideshow work that I love to do like the fire eating. Latina Heat actually eats fire. I'm hoping one day I can fire eat when I go to the ring. I hope that that would be the epic ring entrance, but we'll see."
Hausman later asked Guerrero about being in WWE developmental just before the Women's Revolution kicked off in WWE. Guerrero talked about how she was still in the era of non-wrestling segments, but she expressed her excitement to wrestle in this current era of women's wrestling.
"It was different than what it is now for sure," Guerrero noted. "I feel like I was sometimes coddled a little bit. We were still in the era of bikini contests instead of wrestling matches and dance contests. I don't think I ever had a match that was longer than 15 minutes, that's kind of with entrances.
"We were still considered the 'let me up' match a lot of the time, but you know what though, I'm really happy where wrestling has gone since then. Everyone's on the same standard now. Everyone needs to know how to work and, not that we weren't. We were training really hard, and it was intense, but as far as when the show's came around, I wish we would have had more and been held to a higher standard at that time, besides our looks.
"Obviously, amazing changes have been made, and I'm so happy about it. And I'm hella intimidated to be coming into such an amazing group of women and just women's wrestling in general. So I can't wait to get started. I have a lot of catching up to do."
Guerrero also opened up about her departure from WWE. She discussed dealing with an eating disorder and the help she received from WWE.
"I've always had an eating disorder ever since I was younger, and maybe I wasn't very aware of how being involved in a company, it's the top tier. It's the biggest company in the world," Guerrero stated. "There's a lot of pressure in general for anyone that walks through the door, let alone a woman, let alone a Guerrero, and the first Guerrero woman that is going to be used for in-ring abilities full-time. So it was really intimidating. I clearly wasn't handling the pressure very well, and I was lashing out using an eating disorder to kind of cope with those feelings.
"And Joey Mercury, one of my coaches at the time and Rob McIntyre, the really wonderful wonderful weight training coach that we had at the time, noticed I was doing very poorly mentally and physically, and they had me go into rehab. And WWE completely covered my rehab. I was in there for 3 months in-patient treatment, and I left initially because I still didn't have a grasp of how I can maintain good health, especially a new found health. I've had this eating disorder since I was 10. It's going to take longer than three months for me to rework how I think about myself, let alone what people expect from me as an entertainer.
"So I left for a year to try and get better, felt a lot stronger, came back to WWE and I needed a little break when I was there. We bump Monday through Friday and then we have shows Friday and Saturday, and you get one day off. That's a lot on the body, and I'm not going to lie. I couldn't keep bumping the way I was bumping, and I asked for a little time to heal. They said I was going to be okay. 'Don't worry, you're such a strong mic personality.' I was also learning how to do commentary. I was doing all the things on the mic, but for some reason, that next week, they let me go, so I don't know. I don't know what their reasonings were, but I'm really happy that I'm where I am now, and it's made me a lot stronger as a person and made me grow a lot."
Shaul Guerrero battles Deonna Purrazzo at Global Syndicate Wrestling's debut show on February 20th. The show is available to stream via FITE.
Shaul's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here. You can find the full interview in both video and audio form below: