JBL Details Eddie Guerrero Struggling With The Pressure Of Being WWE Champion

While Eddie Guerrero experienced the euphoria that came with beating Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Title at No Way Out 2004, the months that followed were hard on the new champion.

As well as losing Lesnar (who quit WWE to pursue the NFL), the SmackDown brand were also left without the injured Kurt Angle and Big Show, while the post-WrestleMania draft did not replenish the blue brand's roster with top heels for Eddie to work with.

This led to the creation of the John Bradshaw Layfield character, who ultimately took the title from Eddie at the Great American Bash pay-per-view.

During a recent edition of the Something to Wrestle podcast, JBL spoke about the pressure Guerrero felt during his reign, saying:

"Yeah, Eddie felt it tough. And I wish he'd got the title again, because I think he'd have been fine with it. When he got it the first time it was - you know, and I've seen this happen a lot with champions. Some people grow with the title, some people shrink with this title. Some people become overwhelmed with the title. Eddie became a little bit overwhelmed with it. And I don't mean that from the ring work, but Eddie was always looking at ratings and crowd size, and it was really - 'Okay, well the rating was down here. Is that my fault?'. And I would say, 'Eddie, you weren't even in the segment. So no, it wasn't your fault'.

"It really weighed on him, being champion. He knew the pressure of it. He took that pressure really tough. And I wish he had become champion again, because he would have been completely different. Now that being said, none of it showed in his work. Absolutely zero of it ever showed in his work that he was cracking or anything else. But there was a lot of pressure you could tell that Eddie felt. And by what he talked about. I said, 'Hey, let's just do quality. Let's not worry about ratings. Let's not worry about crowds'. And he said, 'Well, we gotta do this. We gotta do that'. You know, it really weighed on him".

JBL recently noted that Bruce Prichard helped mastermind his current run on the independent scene.

H/T 411Mania.com

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