Entertainment

Erica Parise/Netflix

'GLOW' Pays Homage To A Beloved Wrestling Figure

by Megan Walsh

At the very end of Episode 7 of Netflix's GLOW, a title card appeared that dedicated the episode to Chavo Guerrero Sr. However, the in memoriam might have left some viewers just a little bit confused since his connection to the series may not have been immediately apparent. If you're not already in the know about professional wrestling, you might have missed what it meant. So who is Chavo Guerrero Sr.?

Guerrero, born Salvador Guerrero III but known professionally as Chavo Classic, was a wrestler who came from a wrestling family. He was most popular in 1970s and '80s, when he became known as one of Rowdy Roddy Piper's rivals, and earned himself quite a few wrestling accolades. He was the oldest competitor to win the Cruiserweight Championship title in the WWE and before that he'd been a 15-time NWA Americas heavyweight champion for NWA Hollywood Wrestling.

Guerrero died on Feb. 11 of this year at the age of 68 years old. In January he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and succumbed to the disease just a month later. But he wasn't just being honored on GLOW as a professional courtesy; his connection to the show was personal, too. His son Chavo Guerrero Jr. is the wrestling coordinator for GLOW, so the show was paying homage to someone deeply important to one of their cast and crew.

Guerrero Jr. announced his father's passing on Instagram with a caption that showed how much he admired his dad. "Today the world lost a true rebel," Guerrero Jr. wrote. "He did things 'HIS' way. Not always right, not always wrong, but he always followed what he believed in." The father and son weren't the only two in the Guerrero family to be involved in wrestling, but they also weren't the only two with a connection to GLOW — the original GLOW, that is.

GLOW stands for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which was a real TV series that ran in the late '80s and inspired the Netflix show. One of the trainers for the original series was Mando Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero Sr.'s brother. Considering the Guerrero family involvement with both versions of the show, it was a nice gesture for GLOW to dedicate an episode to Guerrero Sr. even though he himself wasn't a part of either series.

Though the connection between Chavo Guerrero Sr. and GLOW might not have been clear at first glance, it's one that runs deep.