10 WCW Cruiserweight Matches You Should Watch
Because sometimes Raw, NXT, and 205 Live just won't be enough to satisfy.
With the sudden resurgence of the Cruiserweights on Raw and 205 Live debuting, it’s important to know where that division came from, because it’s not a WWE innovation. In fact, it’s probably the only good thing that WCW did that wasn’t the New World Order.
In 1995, Eric Bischoff started bringing younger, smaller talent into World Championship Wrestling as filler for WCW Monday Nitro. While Shinjiro Otani is long forgotten as the first WCW Cruiserweight Champion, most of the Cruiserweights in WCW are either still wrestling or are acclaimed as some of the best wrestlers of the 1990s. From Dean Malenko to Jamie Noble, WCW used the Cruiserweights to tell a story that wasn’t the big guys of 80’s past.
The Cruiserweights had a little something for everyone, too. If you love a good mat wrestler, you could watch Dean Malenko or Chris Jericho. If you wanted innovation, you were going to watch Rey Mysterio or Juventud Guerrera. If the brawler was your kind of guy, La Parka and Psychosis were going to deliver.
In other words, no matter what your preferences, it seemed you were going to get a top tier match from any of the Cruiserweights. And that's very much why the division's best matches deserve to be revisited even now...
10. Juventud Guerrera V. Blitzkrieg
This match saw two very underrated Cruiserweights from WCW show the world that they were a force to be reckoned with. Juventud - who had already been a multiple-time Cruiserweight champion - had a great opponent in Blitzkrieg, who could keep the pace and match ridiculous moves with him.
From Blitzkrieg countering a surfboard to a pinfall to Juventud dropkicking Blitzkrieg out of a plancha on the outside, these two went hard. The aerial offense wasn’t at its peak, but it was absolutely heavy hitting when they made contact. At one point, Blitzkrieg hit a springboard from the inside of the ring to the top rope, only to turn 180 and moonsault Juventud on the floor.
Sure, it was sloppy at times due to the nature of the spots, but it was still remarkably fun to watch. A top rope Juvy Driver finished Blitzkrieg off in an out of nowhere finish that should have been expected from these two.