KHill’s Top 10 Wrestlers – #9

Mar 25, 2009 in Site News by KHill

Friday I wrote about my #10 favorite wrestler of all time. Diamond Dallas Page was a fan favorite, and was by far one of the most famous wrestlers from WCW’s peek point in the ratings war. Today we move onto my #9 favorite. This could shock alot of people, and he was also in WCW during its highest ratings. I’m talking about the man of 1000 holds. The Iceman. Dean Malenko.

#9 – Dean Malenko

Dean Malenko

Dean Malenko will go down as arguably one of the greatest technical wrestlers ever. He’s easily (in my humble opinion) one of the most underrated wrestlers in recent memory. He didn’t neccesarily have a look and he wasn’t what I would call a mic magician, but my God did he have some classic matches? Five star matches with Rey Mysterio, Ultimo Dragon, Chris Jericho, the list goes on and on.

If you know anything about me, you know I feel charisma is important in the pro wrestling world. I say just great ring skills cant make you a star. I guess my exception would be Dean Malenko. He was no nonsense. His moves were textbook. I love his leg lariat, the brainbuster, and of course his gutbuster off the top rope. A real innovative move during that era. I could list other moves. There are 997 others to choose from after all.

But even though he knew 1000 holds, none were bigger than the Texas Cloverleaf. Still a favorite finisher of mine, the Cloverleaf is best put as a mix between a boston crab and figure four. When he started setting his opponents up, the crowd would get loud, knowing what was coming next. As a tribute to Malenko you can find almost every eWrestler I’ve handled using the Texas Cloverleaf on occasion.

Dean was a member of the new Four Horsmen alongside Benoit, Mongo McMichael, and of course Ric Flair. They feuded with the NWO, but at that time, who didn’t? This incarnation wasn’t very successful and to my knowledge didn’t last long.

The Iceman held his fair share of titles as well. A 2x ECW TV Champion, 1x tag champion in both ECW and WCW. Dean also won the WCW United States title, and was the WWF Light Heavyweight Champion for nearly an entire year.

But no title was bigger for the Malenko career like the WCW Crusierweight title. Dean won the title on four different occasions making him the first to do that. His fourth reign came in the middle of his big feud with Chris Jericho, dressing up as Ciclope. One of my favorite memories of all of WCW.

So Dean Malenko may not have had the body or the catchphrase but the man could out wrestle anyone on any given night. And that’s why hes my #9 favorite wrestler of all time.

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