7 Wrestlers Who Were The First To Win Equal Championships

6. Dean Malenko - WWE Light Heavyweight & WCW Cruiserweight

Dean Malenko
WWE.com

WWE's inability to book cruiserweight wrestling goes back way further than Hornswoggle and Jamie Noble. In 1997 the then-WWF introduced a Light Heavyweight Championship in order to counter the popularity of WCW's cruiserweight division, with Taka Michinoku defeating Brian Christopher to become the inaugural champion.

To give the reader a clear idea of the credibility of this championship, Gillberg was the third champion.

11 men held the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship, but only two managed to do this after also winning the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. X-Pac (Syxx) was the second, but the first man to achieve the honour was none other than this writer's favourite wrestler, Dean Malenko.

Malenko was one of the mainstays of the WCW cruiserweight division, winning its much more prestigious title on four separate occasions. The 'Iceman' eventually became the centrepiece of the WWE light heavyweight division too, winning the title twice. He was the first man to win both.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.