Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
The WWE career of ‘The Puerto Rican Nightmare’ Eric Perez aka Eric Escobar is one that is a real head-scratcher. In this latest ‘Remember When‘ piece we look at his quick push and fall back down to earth.
The WWE signed Eric Perez to a WWE developmental deal and he would spend the next four and half years down in their system. When he finally got the call up to the main roster, Perez was repackaged as Eric Escobar and seemingly sent on the fast track to superstardom.
Escobar was immediately paired with “Smackdown’s Consultant” Vicki Guerrero and made to be her lover/boyfriend/boy toy. With Guerrero’s power on the blue brand, she very much like she did for the careers of both Edge and Dolph Ziggler granted Escobar with opportunity after opportunity. Segments were shown each week of Vicki and Eric kissing and making nice with each other in front of the Smackdown general manager Teddy Long.
Eric Escobar got his first big win by defeating Matt Hardy in a singles match. That victory led Escobar to represent Team Smackdown against Raw on the WWE’s pay per view Bragging Rights. That’s when signs that something was wrong started happening. Before the pay per view started, Michael Hayes approached “Team Smackdown” backstage and informed them that their match was a late scratch. Escobar, along with the other wrestlers involved, asked why and were told: “The team looks weak on paper.”
Just like that, things started to fall apart for the WWE career of Escobar. He then was awarded a shot at John Morrison’s Intercontinental title and it seemed that Escobar was a sure bet to win the belt. Surely, winning the IC title would propel his career. Alas, Escobar lost the title match to Morrison and came away with nothing. A small setback, but a rematch was in the works, right?
Actually, what happened next was more perplexing. Vickie Guerrero and Eric Escobar had a falling out with Escobar calling her names and getting slapped by Vickie. The couple broke up right before our eyes on television. The move seemed to be a hot shot for whatever reason and now Eric Escobar was expected to become a big babyface. Instead, the next couple of weeks saw Vickie “punish” Escobar and booked him in handicap matches which he all lost. You would assume the thought process was for fans to feel sympathy for Vickie Guerrero’s ex.
They didn’t get that opportunity, however, as Eric Escobar was then released from the company. In just four months time, Escobar went from mega push to mega burial. In interviews following his release, Eric Perez was left as confused as every fan watching. To this day, he never got an answer as to why they set up a huge push for him, only to take it all away. He does assume that somebody higher up had issues with him from the beginning but doesn’t know who. Was it John Laurinaitis? Kevin Dunn? Vince McMahon? We will probably never know.
What we do know is from Eric Perez himself, who was told one thing by Vince McMahon and completely different things from road agents. McMahon wanted Escobar to be a hot-headed Latino who would go to extremes when angry. The road agents would then tell him to “tone down” his aggressiveness in the ring. Escobar, who wanted to listen to the big boss, was getting mixed signals as if the instructions to tone down his act came from McMahon himself.
Was somebody legitimately sabotaging his career in the WWE before it could take off? From all accounts, Escobar was a model employee that always did what was asked of him. He never got into any fights, he showed up on time and wasn’t always drunk or high. While Eric Escobar wasn’t the best wrestler in the world, he admitted that openly himself, he was very charismatic and a great entertainer. Something that Vince would love to have on his roster. Yet somebody, somewhere, put an end to that.