The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle has been in “total torture for the past month-plus,” like he was in some sort of metaphysical headlock. Of course, he wasn’t in any physical agony; it was just the unbridled joy of getting the actual wrestling legend Chavo Guerrero to star in the video for “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero” and not being able to tell anyone. Well, Darnielle can finally breathe easy, as the clip can now be viewed below.
The video for the Beat the Champ track sees Guerrero getting back in the ring alongside present day pro wrestlers Ray Rosas, Joey Ryan, and Ryan Nemeth. Comedian Rob Corddry also makes an appearance as two separate characters — a bookish announcer and a flamboyant fighter. All the Goats themselves show up as well, with Darnielle getting to reenact the famous CM Punk incident from 2011. Essentially, the whole clip is Darnielle living out the childhood dreams captured on the album itself, and he couldn’t be more excited about it.
“I consider myself pretty decent with words,” the singer-songwriter said in a statement, “but I don’t think I can find the right ones to say what a profound experience it was to hear Chavo say ‘any time, brother’ over the phone from his home in Arizona, and to meet up with him in LA and get stories from him about his dad Gory and about the old days at the Olympic, and to finally shoot this video, in which he rescues me from a certain beatdown even though my character’s playing the heel. I don’t wanna stand between you all and [director] Scott Jacobson’s awesome video much longer, but before you go check it out, please join me in raising a glass to Chavo Guerrero: champion not only in name but in his word and deed, and now a friend.”
