Chavo Guerrero explains why he believes fight choreography for shows like “Young Rock” is more challenging than competing in a 30-minute wrestling match.
Chavo Guerrero is a member of the legendary Guerrero dynasty. During his time in WWE, he was a multi-time Tag Team Champion and Cruiserweight Champion and even had a run with the ECW championship.
Nowadays, Chavo is working on fight choreography for “Young Rock,” a television series that involves brief wrestling scenes as it details the young life of Dwayne Johnson growing up around the business.
Speaking to Mark Thompson on Conway on Demand, Chavo explained why, despite the seemingly easy spots put together for these types of programming, filming short wrestling scenes can be more demanding than wrestling a full match.
“Pro wrestling, when you're on the circuit like that like with WWE or [AEW], you're working with the guy who is hopefully as good as you, but a lot of times they're not. So, you're constantly working around your injuries and their injuries and a storyline. You’re really putting your life in your health in their hands because I may be doing a move that the guy knows how to do or I have told him that I'm going to do that move but really, if he doesn't base me right or if he messes up, I can flip it out of his hands and land right on my neck. It's really like a dance that you're trying to and that's kind of what you're doing and wrestling.
“But, what I'm doing now in film choreography and fight choreography, I have to tailor all these different moves to what my actor can do and what they feel comfortable doing. Remember, I'm not training them to do a WrestleMania match, I'm training them to do a scene in front of the camera, like a one-sided camera, So, it's a little bit different and sometimes, it's harder because if I'm wrestling, I wrestle 20 straight minutes and I'm done. Sometimes, these actors, I have them doing the same 30 or 45 seconds little routine for six hours because they switch the camera angle, then they'll switch it again, and then they'll go to lunch, come back, warm-up, and do it again. So, that choreography may have two or three little falls in it but you do that ten times, that's thirty falls these guys are taking, so sometimes it's harder.”
Young Rock has maintained about 3 million viewers weekly since their debut. You can catch the show weekly on NBC. You can also catch Young Rock streaming alongside the WWE Network on NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
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