8 Best WCW Cruiserweight Championship Matches

Chris Jericho and Ultimo Dragon first came to the attention of American wrestling fans thanks to a series of superlative matches they had against one another for the Wrestle and Romance (WAR) promotion in Japan in 1995. The tapes made the rounds on the tape trading circuit, which brought him to the attention of Paul Heyman and ECW and then WCW.

The two men got the chance to wrestle one another in front of a match bigger stage at the 1997 Bash at the Beach. There was no real storyline or anything going into it and Jericho was very much in his generic fighting babyface phase, but the action was good.

Recycling their best spots from previous matches the two put on an entertaining, if at times sloppy, high-spot fest. The story was very much them countering each other's moves, finding counters to counters and having to vary up their usual offense when their opponent had them sussed.

Standout moments came in the form of Dragon countering a Y2J Lionsault with a mid-air dropkick, Jericho hitting a precision moonsault bodyblock and Ultimo hitting a forward roll followed by a tidy snap 'rana. Then there was all of the pin attempts and reversals and what have you.

Jericho retained the strap, rolling through on a Frankensteiner attempt. A sportsmanlike post-match handshake and embrace was a nice touch from two men who were building quite the CV of matches together at this point.