20 Secret Highlights Of WCW That WWE Won't Tell You About
6. Dean Malenko Was Quietly The Best Wrestler Alive
Dean Malenko's high-profile defection from WCW, along with the rest of the Radicalz, is often cited as a turning point in the Monday Night Wars. Benoit and Guerrero became world champions, yes, but Saturn and Malenko never got much higher on the card than they had in WCW. In fact, they may actually have suffered from the jump, as both men were fitted with dumb comedy gimmicks. To WWE fans, Dean Malenko was just the stumpy guy with the James Bond music wrestling for the light-heavyweight championship -- probably the least competitive division in company history, with all due respect to Essa Rios and Scotty 2 Hotty.
In WCW, though, the Iceman was the undisputed MVP of the cruiserweight golden age. Yes, Rey Mysterio was definitely the fan favorite, and I'll confess to a personal loyalty to Último Dragón, but Malenko was just far and away the glue that held the division together. The best juniors on the planet were coming to compete in WCW, and Malenko outwrestled them all. Every Nitro featured brightest lights of puro and lucha libre getting absolutely wrecked by this unassuming Jewish dad's modified leg locks. Just for some perspective: Dean Malenko ranked first in the PWI 500 for 1997. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was number three.