What If Taka Michinoku Had Been In WCW Instead of WWF/E?

[Cena's Little Helper]

This thread relates to Taka Michinoku and (the) WWF/E's egregious mistreatment of him. In the middle of 1997, with WCW dominating in the ratings, the WWF debuted Taka Michinoku, an awkward looking Japanese cruiserweight that was nonetheless a sight to be seen in the ring. While Michinoku was awarded the WWF's Light Heavyweight Championship in December 1997 after beating Brian Christopher/Grandmaster Sexay in the finals of a tournament for this championship and held onto it for almost a year before dropping it to Christian, he afterwards became part of the comedy jobber tag team Kaientai before leaving Vince McMahon's company in early 2002.

Personally, this is one of the cases in WWE's history where I shake my head and think of all the great things they could have done with such a talent. But, recently, I got to thinking of what kind of impact Michinoku would have had if he had been part of WCW's illustrious cruiserweight division, which included the likes of Rey Mysterio, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Jericho. In my opinion, he would have had many more opponents and much more opportunity to shine and show how great he truly was. Consequently, I think that, if Michinoku had been in WCW during the late 1990s, we would still be talking about him today and treating him as the equal of the four cruiserweights I previously mentioned, whom we, as members of the IWC, venerate and consider to be assets to the companies they work or worked for.

What are your thoughts on the matter? How would Michinoku's American career have panned out had he been with WCW instead WWF/E in the late 1990s?

 

[NSL]

I was a huge mark for Taka, and the Michinoku Driver is still my favorite.

I'll agree he was mis-used in the WWF, but imagine how bad it could have been in WCW. They had an overly crowded cruiserweight division, with Kidman, Psicosis, Vampiro, Chavo, and a litany of others chasing the title.

He may have gotten a semi-push for being japanese, and NOT wearing a mask, but he wouldn't have went anywhere.

The best move for him, would have been to just stay in Japan, and avoid American-ized wrestling.

 

[TheOneBigWill]

While W.C.W. had a huge Cruiserweight division, arguably only the likes of Rey Mysterio, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Juvi Guerrera, Ultimo Dragon & Billy Kidman ever truly made it in that division. Several dozen got left in the cold.

Taka Michinoku needed his E.C.W. faithful, mixed with the W.C.W. Cruiserweight roster. Combined, he would've made a much better go of his career. But ultimately, even if he would've been in W.C.W. instead.. I doubt he would've done much more than a random feud with Mysterio, Guerrera, or maybe even Jericho.

The thing is, W.C.W. had more known Champions than who I mainly named above. They had Chavo Guerrero & Shane (Gregory) Helms carry the division toward the end of the company. They also had Shannon Moore, Jimmy Yang, Jamie Noble and Evan Karagias.

So in the end, Taka was a great talent for the W.W.F., in a failed attempt at a Light Heavyweight division.. but he would've likely been even more invisable and unimportant in an over-populated W.C.W. Crusierweight division.

 

[klunderbunker]

Yeah Will's right. WWF's division was awful with the exception of maybe a month, but after that it faded completely. WCW's division was WAY too crowded for someone even with Taka's abilities to get noticed. Now that's not his fault by any means. He was a good comedy guy and had an incredibly rare crusierweight tag team with Funaki, but other than that he had nothing that really would ahve made him stand out in WCW. When you match him up with someone like Rey or Juvi, he looks average. It would have been better than WCW, but not by much.

 

[TREE24K]

I think he would have been lost in the shuffle of the great cruiser weights WCW had at the time. There were some really great guys that never got more than a cup of coffee with WCW. Remember Blitzkreig any one. He was awesome and didn't make a dent in the division. My favorite cruiserweight of all time would have to be Dean Malenko. Dude would wrestle you out of your socks but leave your shoes on while he was doing it.

 

[Tastycles]

The WWF had the potential to have a cruiserweight division as interesting and good as the one in WCW if they had run with it. Taka beat Aguila, later Essa Rios, for the Light HEavyweight title, but the were plenty of others that could have entered the division. X-Pac was one of the most over people in WWF at the time, and Too Cool/Much were also fairly popular. By the time the Hardys and Brood moved to the main roster they would have had a fairly substansial division, and the title would have probably been more prestigious than the European and Hardcore titles.

On the other hand, they could screw people like Taka into the ground and put the title on Gillberg for 18 months. That would have been cool.

 

[TheLoneWolf]

I totally agree with what everyone's saying, that Taka Michinoku was mis-used. Not only was he great for singles with the Light Heavyweight division, but him and Funaki could have easily been tag champs. Both of them together could out-wrestle such illustrious tag teams like T & A and Too Cool. And let's put this in mind, if Vince really loved him, he could be a world champ today. I mean Rey Mysterio had a title run and he's not all that good to me. Even though WCW had a huge roster of Cruiserweights, he still could've flourished, especially in the late 90s, when there was an influx of Japanese wrestlers. Had he been in WCW, he would've jump-shipped to WWE after WCW went out of business and then would have faded away after a couple months.
Taka was highly talented and his a great wrestler, and should've been treated better. Had he gotten a better chance, he could've excelled. Go watch his WWF title match with HHH from 2000... good stuff dude. INDEED!

Nader 2012