Dean Malenko Talks About The Passings Of Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit

 Dean Malenko was a guest on the AEW Unrestricted podcasr. He talked about a multitude of topics during his interview, including walking out of WCW with fellow stars Chris Jericho, and the late Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit.

Malenko recalls finding out about Eddie's death from Fit Finlay. He said that even after so much time has passed, it still feels fresh because of how close he was with Eddie.

"I remember being in the Marriott hotel in downtown Minneapolis when Fit Finlay was downstairs. Walked out of the building, I’ve known Fit for many years, and he didn’t even have to say anything. I just go something’s wrong. He goes Eddie passed last night, and I couldn’t say anything. I was just in shock just total shock. Yeah, 15-16 years ago, and it’s still sometimes fresh. Such a funny guy, a great guy. An impactful person that’s spent a lot of time around my wife and my kids."

He also talked about why he was guilty about the tragedy that happened with Chris

"I lost two friends in a two-year time span. At Eddie's funeral I spoke. I said he's my road wife. Eddie knew everything. The music I like, the clothes I liked [and] what made me tick, and vice versa with him and Chris. That was hard both for totally different reasons. Chris is just hard to wrap my head around it. Part of me feels guilty sometimes because I miss him, and he's a great in-ring performer. I feel guilty for what he did. Maybe I shouldn't feel that way, but I know in the back of my mind that wasn't the guy that I knew for 15 years."

On a new note, he spoke about the time when he, Perry Saturn, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero walked out on WCW, and signed with WWF.

"Things started going south a little bit after nWo came in and Nash was kind of taking over. We had a conversation between us all. I don't remember if Eddie was in the conversation or not. It was time to move on because politics right the basics. For me and Chris, we knew we had something to fall back on going back to work in Japan. Worst-case scenario, there's nobody that wanted us out there, but we also respected that, and we knew what our limitations were, and we're very confident to work and what we could bring to another organization.

So it was the night in Cincinnati, Chris is working with Sid Vicious and winning the title. The craziest things, early in the day, we told them we were leaving. They still wanted to give him the title. Still can't figure that out. Probably the craziest booking I've ever heard. And then the other funny part of that story is as we were walking down the hall, it was Bill Banks, who was kind of like the liaison in between Eric running the company at the time, submitted a statement a couple months back.

If you don't want to be here, just tell me and you don't have to be here. As we were walking this long walk, like Chariots of Fire kind of walk all the way down the hallway to this guy's office, Eddie was running a little bit late and kind of walked in front of us with his bag, there was a match he was getting ready for. He goes, 'where you guys going?' I go, 'we're gonna quit.' I'll just come with you. He had no idea. If you guys are leaving, then I'll leave too."