Vickie Guerrero spoke to Kevin Eck of the Baltimore Sun to promote tomorrow night’s WWE Capitol Punishment pay-per-view event in Washington D.C. as well as Monday’s Raw in Baltimore, Maryland. She discussed numerous topics including how her recognizable catchphrase came out, Eddie Guerrero’s influence on her career, her significant weight loss, her weight being lampooned on WWE programming, and more.
Guerrero reveals that her trademark saying, “Excuse Me!”, came by accident one night at a television event.
“That was just a fluke,” Guerrero says. “I think I probably forgot my lines one night and just kept saying ‘excuse me’ to remember what I had to say next, and the fans just got louder. I tried it a couple more times and we thought, let’s stay with it and see where it goes. Now I sign all my autographs with ‘excuse me.'”
Guerrero says Eddie Guerrero is the inspiration behind her heel character as she learned how to cut an effective promo from watching him perform.
She says, “I think it goes back to watching Eddie do promos [wrestling monologues] in the living room and in the bathroom for 15 years. The louder I can get the fans and the angrier they are at me, the more it fuels the fire in me to just push them to the edge even more. It’s a high.”
Numerous insults have been levied at Guerrero over the years regarding her weight. Despite losing more than 50 pounds since last year, the jokes about her being overweight have continued to linger on WWE programming. She, however, feels it comes with territory.
“The jokes have helped grow my character to what it is,” she said. “I just kind of roll with it and leave it behind me when I leave the arena. Again, there’s the character and then there’s the real person. You can’t take what’s going on at work personally.”
She continues, “They really didn’t bother me. Well, I guess they did to an extent, but not to where I was feeling bad about myself. It was who I was. We have beautiful women that work with us, and when I was in the locker room with them and we’re dressing and stuff, I would look at them and be like, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous. I’m going to change.’ I wanted to feel good being a part of their group and to live a lifestyle that was going to be promoted with the WWE. Now when they say the jokes, it’s like, “Whatever.'”
Guerrero attributes her significant weight loss to exercise and a stringent diet.
She says, “I’ve lost 52 pounds. My secret was to stop eating all the junk food after leaving the arenas. I never really trained the first four years I was with WWE, so I wasn’t happy with how I looked and I wanted to have some improvement, so I found a personal trainer and also started doing the nutrition side of it. I’m really happy with the results, and I probably have like 20 more pounds to go. You cut out breads; you cut out all the junk food. I don’t drink any more sodas. I just eat healthy chicken and steak and rice. I don’t have any fried foods. I do have my cheat days and I look forward to them because you have to enjoy life. It’s so bad at our catering at work because our dessert table is bigger than our entrée table, so I save my Mondays and Tuesdays for a piece of cake or something that’s sweet. That’s my reward if I work hard during the week.”
The interview is available here.