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Before Eddie Guerrero became a big name in WWE and won the World Championship, he used to work for WCW. He was part of groups such as the Latino World Order and The Filthy Animals in WCW. But then he suddenly left, along with some other wrestlers, and showed up on the final Raw of January 2000. Usually, when wrestlers are released, they have a non-compete clause so that they don’t immediately show up in another promotion. But when Guerrero and others were let go from their contract in 2000, they didn’t have any of this. Initially, WCW didn’t even want to let them go.
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Eddie Guerrero & Others Wanted To Leave WCW
To get a better idea of everything, we need to rewind a little and start with the wrestler who played a significant role in all of this. It’s a known fact that Chris Benoit was unhappy working for WCW. Other wrestlers such as Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Perry Saturn, Shawn Douglas, and Konnan also wanted to leave WCW. After Vince Russo suggested that Tank Abbott win the WCW Championship at Souled Out 2000, he was removed from his position as head writer. Kevin Sullivan then rose to power and became the head booker. Now, Benoit and Sullivan already had history, and in the Death of WCW book, it’s mentioned at least 14 other wrestlers including Benoit wanted to leave the company over their hatred for Sullivan.
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A day before the Souled Out event, these wrestlers asked for their release but most of them changed their minds the next day. However, the five wrestlers mentioned above were still adamant about leaving WCW and went to Bill Busch, but he asked them to wait before making a decision.
Since Benoit was Sullivan’s choice to win the WCW Championship at Souled Out, they went ahead with that idea. The day after the PPV, Busch told them that since they all had a problem with Sullivan being the head booker he’d remove him from his head booker position. This calmed everyone down and they decided to stay, but for some reason, everyone but Benoit was later told that they could have their release. WCW tried to convince Benoit to stay with the lure of the WCW Title, but he made it clear: he wouldn’t stay if his friends were leaving. So WCW later stripped the belt off him and the kayfabe explanation for this was that his submission victory at Souled Out 2000 wasn't legal.
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Eddie Guerrero Was Released Without A Non-Compete Clause
If a wrestler is unhappy with their role and wants to leave a promotion, they can’t just go and work someplace else because of their contract. So how did these five wrestlers leave WCW even though they were not obligated to release them? Fans might remember that they were also released without a non-compete clause because, only after a few days of getting released, these wrestlers debuted in WWE (except for Konnan and Douglas) as The Radicalz.
In Eddie Guerrero’s autobiography, he mentioned how some people told Busch that none of them were going to become popular in WWE, so they were let go. But their contract prevented them from wrestling anywhere else for the next six months, so how did they appear in WWE shortly after their release?
Guerrero wrote in his book: “Fortunately, we had some ammunition in our pockets that forced WCW to give us full releases. When we said we wanted out, one of the WCW road agents got pissed off and threatened to 'slice our throats.' He was just talking out of anger, but it allowed us to go to Turner’s Human Resources Department and say, 'Look, one of your employees threatened to kill us if we left. Either take out the non-compete stipulation in our contracts or we’ll sue.'”
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All of them were released from their contracts without any non-compete stipulation. On the January 31, 2000, edition of Monday Night Raw, Guerrero, Benoit, Saturn, and Malenko debuted in the company as The Radicalz. Jumping ships to Vince McMahon’s company proved to be a great decision as Guerrero went on to become one of the most popular wrestlers of the Ruthless Aggression Era.
