8 Best WCW Cruiserweight Championship Matches
5. Juventud Guerrera Vs. Billy Kidman - Nitro, September 14 1998
One of the highlights of late-1998 WCW was the series of matches between Juventud Guerrera and Billy Kidman, two talented high-flyers who had worked their way up from enhancement matches, to multi-man match specialists to, finally, being singles stars in their own right.
On the September 14 1999 episode of Nitro, Kidman challenged for Juventud's Cruiserweight Title before a red hot crowd of around 13,000 in Greenville, South Carolina. Kidman, who split from Raven's Flock stable earlier in the show, was actually a substitute for the underrated Kaz Hayashi in this one.
Anyway, the match! The two men began by exchanging chops, with Juventud gaining the advantage and clearing the ring with a big missile dropkick. Kidman gave as good as he got, though, taking the Mexican down with a slingshot headscissors and a powerslam.
After that hot opening exchange the pace cooled somewhat, as the two combatants conserved their energy for a flurry at the finish. The two men continued to one-up each other in the final ten minutes, Kidman answering The Juice's hurricanranas and suplexes with powerbombs and some suplexes of his own.
In the end, Kidman got the win with his SSP to win the Cruiserweight Title for the first time. Juventud would regain the belt from Kidman on the November 16 episode of Nitro in what was another absolute barnburner.