Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 28: Dean Malenko vs. Jushin Liger (Nitro 5/6/96)

This should be fun. Liger hasn’t gotten his due from me as a fan in almost a decade. In tape collecting his body of work slipped through the cracks because I was always a bigger All Japan heavys mark, and when it came to Super Juniors I was an Shinjiro Ohtani geek. And of course I had WCW Nitro to get my cruiserweight fix. It’s only fitting that Liger came calling to WCW, and I don’t remember this match.

Earlier stuff is super quick technical hold-reversal stuff. A lot of beautiful wrestling in the first two minutes, thought he match at time becomes a back drop for Flair coming out to sit at a table. I’m not kidding. Hogan and Flair angles apparently dominated every other second of the first year of Nitro, which is why I probably don’t remember a lot of it off the top of my head even though I watched it all. Didn’t capture the imagination.

Malenko does some good leg work on his Japanese challenger, and Liger sells it better (even with a mask) than 85% of wrestlers I watch weekly. Great flash pin attempt, and then Liger pisses me off. He tryings some jumping back spring move that totally negates the leg work. Very frustrating for how beautiful this match was going. I’ll try to forgive and forget. Liger goes on offense doing his signature stuff. This includes his running flip kick and dive to the outside. They get a little sloppy with roll ups, but they keep moving. Crowd really pops for a top rope gut buster. Malenko wins with a tiger driver in six and a half minutes shown (probably 8 minutes). Malenko was gold in this match. Liger troubles here only came when he tried to fly a bit too much, and part of that is he was just to thick and had worn knees by this point. Good little match. 3 stars and 6/10.