Dean Malenko WWF Days.

[123NewChamp]

Hey Guys. I was pondering on something this morning about problably one of the greatest wrestlers to ever grace the ring. Former WCW and WWF Superstar The Ice Man Dean Malenko. Aka. "The Man of 1000 holds."

My Thing is Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero alon with Saturn left WCW for WWF back in 2000. Dean Malenko was the best cruserweight and one of the greatest technical wrestlers to ever perform in the cruiserweight divison. He captured Cruiserweight and the US Titles multiple times while in WCW along with WCW Tag Team Title Gold.

Then when he gets to WWE, he gets held back imo big time. Only becoming a former light heavyweight champion. While his buddies Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero went on to capture IC, US, Tagteam, and WWE Championships. Now like Benoit, Malenko is not good on the mic, and Eddie Was. But at the end of the day, the guy can wrestle his pants off. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't called the man of a 1,000 holds for nothing. So do you think Dean Malenko's WWF Days were a success? Why or Why not?

 

[Wolf Pac]

Maybe Malenko could've achieved more and gotten a Tag Team title run and an IC Title run aswell, and personally I would've actually liked to have seen him win the IC Title and have another feud with Jericho over the belt somewhere in 2000, but that's about as far as he would've gotten. Like you said, Malenko wasn't good on the mic, he was also small, he wasn't built and he had the personality & charisma of a wooden plank, nothing about him screamed him main eventer and world title material.

 

[KevinCarsner]

I would have to say success, he kept himself clean as far as I know,enjoyed a bit of tv time, and became a road agent. So he works for the big leagues and collects a steady paycheque. I'm guessing life isn't too bad for Malenko.

 

[#heel420]

Extremely underutilized. He was a great Light Heavyweight Champion then they made him a perv that was really into Lita, shortly after that he disappeared from tv and became an agent. Always had solid matches, it's a shame they didn't do more with him in the WWF.

 

[HBKistheHOF]

I wouldn't call Malenko's WWF days a complete failure but I don't think you could really call them a success either. Malenko made money, made it to 'the big show' & if nothing else got a couple more people to see him perform & do his thing. But I completely agree with you that he was held back.

Honestly though, & I would love to hear your opinion on this, but I don't think he was really World Championship material, or atleast not quite to the extent that Benoit & Guererro were. I think for the most part WCW booked him well as a multiple time cruiserweight (aka WCW's light heavyweight equivilent) champion & US (mid-card) champion, as well as tag team champion. He was a great wrestler & a solid performer, but not a face of the company/world title champion IMO.

 

[lalilulelo]

Dean Malenko was a man who never had the pop that Benoit or Guerrero had.
Eddie had charisma, though it took a little longer to emerge. Benoit had an edge to him; you believed he was as insanely tough as he portrayed himself to be on television. Unfortunately, we believed this because it was true, and that toughness did unspeakable damage to Benoit's body and mind. But, that doesn't need to be brought up.

My point is that Malenko didn't have that little thing to make him a star. He was a legendary in-ring performer, but he didn't fit in as a sports entertainer; he wasn't a character. If WWE had put him at the top of a prominent Cruiserweight division, he could have given them five good years of PPV matches, IMO. However, he was never going to be Rey Mysterio. Sadly, I think that if he had been six inches taller he could have been a way more prominent star in WWE.

One of the twenty greatest in-ring performers, ever? Maybe. Destined for a lengthy career in sports entertainment? I don't think so. WCW was more wrestling oriented, geared toward an older audience. He had more of a place there. I would have liked to have seen him on WWE TV more, but he just didn't fit in and his tenure was during a time in which the roster was a well of talent.

 

[Brewski]

While im sure the guy is well off now, he had a good career and a good job now. I really couldn't be more disappointed with his run in WWE though. I always considered him a favorite and one of the most talented wrestlers I have ever seen. I have tons of memories of him from ECW and WCW but barely anything from his time in WWE. I have more vivid memories of Perry Saturn arguing with a broom than I do of the Ice Man

I don't think he was really World Championship material

I would agree with you if Rey Mysterio hadn't won the belt. That was so crazy unrealistic to me that I barely watched any of his title run. It was just absurd that this tiny guy was world heavyweight champion. Mysterio was way more over than Dean, i'll admit that but the logistics of it mean that he could have been a main event guy as well. His character would need a lot of work but I consider it possible.

 

[Doctor Awesome]

I may be the biggest Dean Malenko fan on here, and I will be the first to agree that he was not WWE Champion material but his in-ring tenure up north could/should have been so much more. Sure, he doesn't have charisma that can be seen from outer space and he was 5'9", but YES...he is easily one of the top 20 ring technicians of all time. Having him go completely out of his element w/that creep gimmick didn't do him any favors either; it did very little for Lita and the Hardy's and made him look stupid. His best match in WWE was w/Scotty 2 Hotty at Backlash 2000 (Youtube it; gnarly finish!!!) and why he didn't have strong feuds w/Jericho (who absolutely brought the caged beast out of Dean in WCW-great feud), Angle or XPac (another person he had a good program in WCW with). As stated before, the WWE was a well of talent at the time, with more coming up from Development; but there is always a place on the card/show for great wrestling. Putting him in the ring with the younger guys and performing on-the-job training would have been ideal. Also remember, he had wrestled 22 years non-stop and had a previous broken neck. As flawless as he made it all look, I'm sure he was in plenty of pain. It's great that he stayed w/the company; a stand-up guy, never had substance issues and helps get put together matches and work w/the young talent. Come to think of it not sure if he came back after his heart attack (I think that's what it was), haven't seen him on tv in some time. Definitely disappointed w/his run in WWE, but I still have Japan, ECW and WCW matches to watch.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

Malenko while an outstanding wrestler wasn't nearly as popular as someone like Rey is. As far as a WC, no. Ne didn't have the charisma for that. He wouldn't be able to carry the company. Loved Malenko too BTW.

I would agree with you if Rey Mysterio hadn't won the belt. That was so crazy unrealistic to me that I barely watched any of his title run. It was just absurd that this tiny guy was world heavyweight champion. Mysterio was way more over than Dean, i'll admit that but the logistics of it mean that he could have been a main event guy as well. His character would need a lot of work but I consider it possible.

I will never understand this line of thinking. Why does someones size matter? This is the same type of thinking that held Benoit, Guerrero and others down in WCW. Some of the biggest guys in the world are the biggest softies.

This is wrestling, it's supposed to be unrealistic. Some fans rip Vince for pushing muscle heads but they have the same mentality.

 

[Brewski]

I will never understand this line of thinking. Why does someones size matter? This is the same type of thinking that held Benoit, Guerrero and others down in WCW. Some of the biggest guys in the world are the biggest softies.

This is wrestling, it's supposed to be unrealistic. Some fans rip Vince for pushing muscle heads but they have the same mentality.

No, there's undersized guys and then there is tiny guys, Rey falls into the later category. We're talking about someone who is 5' 6", just past his prime, and a shell of the athlete he was in WCW. Eddie Guerrero while only 2" taller than him had 50 lbs on him. Wrestling doesn't need to be realistic but it should be somewhat believable. He beat Orton and Angle for that title, two superior athletes in every way, he then later played the giant killer role for a while in what I felt were a lot of really uninspiring matches. Its difficult to match up the style of a tiny high flier when the rest of your roster is filled with big guys, it's the same problem Sin Cara is having.

The way I came off wasn't how I meant. I loved WMXX when Eddie and Benoit won, I love the way TNA pushes smaller guys often, I love high flyers and technicians both. To me though Rey wasn't the right champion. The reason I brought it up in the first place was to say that Malenko's size wouldn't be a huge reason for keeping him away from the main event.

 

[thebarber]

Malenko's sleazy gimmick was perfect for his look, as he was pretty ordinary on the mic, he was never going to be a main event level player in WWE at his small size at that time.
Malenko himself retired from the ring, gave a solid year of inring service to Vicne before taking on a role behind the scenes.

 

[boozinjedi]

I would have to say success, he kept himself clean as far as I know,enjoyed a bit of tv time, and became a road agent. So he works for the big leagues and collects a steady paycheque. I'm guessing life isn't too bad for Malenko.

Extremely underutilized. He was a great Light Heavyweight Champion then they made him a perv that was really into Lita, shortly after that he disappeared from tv and became an agent. Always had solid matches, it's a shame they didn't do more with him in the WWF.

They could've done so much more with him,he had all the ablility.
One of the biggest wastes was to not have him wrestle Eddie,anyone who saw their ECW matches knows exactly what I'm talking about..heck those two were signed by WCW on the stength of their series of matches alone.Why else would they BOTH had left ECW at the same time!!

 

[ilapierre]

Dean Malenko had absolutely no charisma but he was a solid wrestler who did pretty much the same thing for me as Chris Benoit. Malenko could wrestle a fantastic midcard match and that would entertain you just as much or more than many of the cheesy ass storylines today like the Cena-AJ-Ziggler triangle one or the extremely unfunny segments involving Santino. Malenko's feud with Jericho in 1998 was a classic although Jericho completely carried it. Thing is, Malenko played his part perfectly by letting Jericho yap till it made him snap. Today you have guys with less potential for charisma like The Miz and Dolph Ziggler 'pretending' to have it. They'd be better off just 'doing the Malenko' and saying nothing and letting the real pros like Cena and Punk carry them as the heavyweight pretenders they really are. So, yeah, Malenko could have been a heavyweight contender if he was around today. But in 2001? No. I could see him doing no better than beating Jericho for the IC title once or twice. If he was around today, he and Punk could have one fantastic feud. Malenko could let Punk yap till he snapped. Come to think of it, both Malenko and Punk are similar in that they're both self proclaimed 'straight edgers'.

SinCityBlitz: I understand what you're saying about how size shouldn't matter since the ending of wrestling matches are always predetermined. I agree to some extent. But I do also agree with the poster who said Rey Mysterio was too small to be a competitive heavyweight. He was a great athlete but he really should have only had one or two 1-2-3 Kid moments in the heavyweight tier. It just throws logic out the window to have a skinny little midcarder routinely beating guys 100 to 200 pounds bigger in the same underdog way. I know fans are suppose to 'suspend' belief so the magical moment can happen but it should be saved for Wrestlemania. It shouldn't happen once a month because it destroys the credibility of the upset. I mean look no further to how Vince Russo had Billy Kidman PINNING Hulk Hogan routinely on weekly episodes of Nitro back in 2000. It helped kill the credibility of WCW's product just as badly or even worse than the Fingerpoke of Doom did. At least the FPOD was part of the NWO conspiracy and made sense storyline-wise. But Billy Kidman pinning Hogan? Kidman was the lightest of lightweights. The only way 'pinning' Hogan would have made any business sense is if it was a long drawn out program where a heel Hogan beat the living shit out of a face Kidman for months only to be pinned out of the blue or at an event like Starrcade the way 123 Kid pinned Razor Ramon.

I'm not saying Rey shouldn't have success against guys only slightly bigger like Benoit or Eddie or Jericho. I'm just saying that his wins over guys like Nash and Big Show should have been kept to a minimum. Could you imagine how unrealistic it would have been had Rey Mysterio existed 10 years earlier and routinely beat much bigger main eventers. Imagine if he wrestled Yokozuna at WM9 and rolled him up for a 1-2-3? Imagine him wrestling Andre at WM3 and hitting him with a cross body splash for the 123. I don't know about you, but endings like that just couldn't ever sit right with me.

 

[fenderjapan]

Dean was great, but he lacked the intensity of Benoit and the charisma of Guerrero which is why he never got over like they did...not to mention the fact that he was considerably older than the other Radicalz.

That being said... I wouldn't call his WWF days a failure. He won 2 light heavyweight Championships at age 40 and was involved in a memorable storyline with Lita.

 

[The HEEL JuiceLee]

Malenko could have been the 1st Daniel Bryan type.I have read Jericoh's books and he says the funniest wrestler he has ever been around is Dean Malenko.He said he is as funny as Will Ferrell.Now ther fact that he didnt choose to show that personality when the camera's were rolling is his fault alone.Jericoh said That Dean could haver been huge if he displayed just half of his personality on camera.

 

[DarkLordFett]

The Ice Man was horribly underutilized in the E. He may have had the charisma of a block of granite, but he was easily as over as Eddie or Chris. The fans knew what he was about, what he could do and just how good he was. As I recall, he always got some of the bigger pops of the shows. He really needed a mouthpiece. He was always the guy that was almost stone silent when partnered up with someone. But you listened when he said something, usually not much. Tag champ for sure or with a manager/valet to talk for him and gone IC. Probaby would be the best he could have done in WWE, which is a shame really.

 

[HBsam31]

I think he was a bit underutilized in the WWE, but I don't think he was quite world title material either. I have to agree with the poster said if you watch his ECW matches with Eddie you could see he had more to offer in the WWE. Even in WCW he attained TV title and US title success. Not everyone has to be a main eventer, but he could have had great matches with Eddie, Benoit, and Jericho for the IC title. He did seem to lack personality, but his in ring skills more than made up for it so while maybe he shouldn't have been going for the WWE title he definitely should have had some epic encounters for the IC title. I still say his time there was successful as he seemed to have gotten in well enough to keep a job all these years, and I am sure he made a great life for himself.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Sadly the most memorable thing about Malenko's career was people making fun of it... Jericho with his 1004 holds and Jerry Lawler with the unintentionally bad but hilarious "Dean Malenko parties with women, goes home, slaps his wife on the ass and says "your next".

The James Bond stuff was ridiculous but to an extent it worked, in that it gave him another year at the top table. Malenko's problem by the time he made WWE was not his ability or lack of charisma but more his age. He was 40+ on his debut and more to the point looked it and it was clear he took the job to make the big money before he retired rather than get the push.

Some guys start late but time was not on Malenko's side, Benoit and Eddie had a few more years (so we and most importantly Vince thought) potential and thus they got the breaks early but Malenko got the bucks (he probably benefitted most from the Radicalz collective bargaining as he had least marquee value). That Malenko was a producer for so long says how respected he was and he clearly has a great mind for wrestling and training but much like how guys like Dan Severn and Steve Williams didn't make it in WWE but made money "failing", so did Malenko so it's hard to feel bad for him, I'm sure he doesn't regret any of it.

 

[dukes07]

Spoiler alert: I am a big WCW guy.

Anyway, I find it amusing how pundits like Meltzer and Alvarez always bash WCW, to this day. Yet, many wrestlers did far better there. Malenko got to wrestle there but once he arrived in the WWF he was shunted to the sidelines pretty quickly with some really forgettable feuds. One with Lita stood out as being particularly bad. I have heard that had Malenko arrived a bit later he would have thrived more in the more wrestling oriented WWF/E (01-2) but from what I can tell not much changed, there was a bit more wrestling but not much.

Also, he was a WCW guy and had to learn the WWF style and he probably never fit in. Jericho though a solid midcarder struggled for 2.5 years before getting the Undisputed title and then was still an afterthought in his horrific feud with HHH. It took Benoit and Guerrero a number of years to get a big push. Same with Big Show. He got his short title run and then was jobbed for years.

EDIT: I loved his feud with Jericho in WCW. Still one of my favorite feuds...He and Jericho were awesome in 98, my favorite year for the two. Though Dean was solid from 96-8.

 

[Ovaltine]

The problem is that Vince Mcmahon had no idea how to book wrestlers who were crusier weights. He never has and he probably never will. Sure, Rey Mysterio got over, but that was because little kids loved Rey's mask. Rey is a two time champion, but durring his original reign he was booked as a weakling and his second reign lasted all of 20 minutes. WWF has NO idea how to book crusier weights.

 

[Just Do It]

Malenko was used far better than WCW. But being the ass kisser he is, still publicly trashes WCW and praises WWE for rescuing him. What a douche. WWE treated him like a joke and did nothing with him. Malenko lost a lot of points in my book for the way he presents himself postWWE jump.