WCW’s Top 5 Masked Cruiserweight Wrestlers

WCW’s Top 5 Masked Cruiserweight Wrestlers

With Halloween just passing us over we can see a lot of super fans were dressed as their favorite wrestlers. These wrestlers did not wear the masks as a novelty. There is history, tradition, and meaning in the wearing of masks for luchadores and cruiserweight wrestlers from all over the world.  WCW was really the first Global exposure to masked Cruiserweights. I know they wrestled in ECW and all over the world before, but never with as much exposure on their WCW runs. I have chosen to make this list specific to WCW. These are my Top 5 Masked WCW Cruiserweight Wresters.

5. Psychosis

It is hard to say what I really loved about Psychosis. He had a sweet name, a great costume, and an unreal arsenal of aerial moves.  He always managed to stand out in my mind more than other cruiserweights of his time. I would say the he is one of the most underrated cruiserweights in WCW history (possible exception of Super Calo ) He is the most underrated cruiserweight on my list today, for sure.

4. Juventud Guerrera

The great thing about this list being exclusive to WCW is that I can completely ignore his WWE run.  He had great intensity, great speed, and great charisma. If you watch his classic matches with Rey Mysterio you can see that he did what most could not… he kept up with the speed of Rey Mysterio. Even the late, great Eddy Guerrero could not completely keep up with Rey Mysterio. Eddie and Rey put on great matches over and over, but Eddie was about half a second slower than Rey. Juvi had the juice to go toe to toe with Mysterio without missing a step. Out of all the cruiserweights on my list I feel like Juvi had the potential to obtain the star power that Mysterio captured.

3. Ultimo Dragon

My personal favorite Cruiserweight in the history of WCW, masked or unmasked. Ulimo Dragon is a certified leGend. He was innovative. He brought us the Asai Moonsault. He brought an amazing combination of lucha and Japanese style together to have a great and pretty deep move set.  Vince brought Ultimo Dragon into the WWE to hopefully give another Cruiserweight the star power of Rey Mysterio, but I personally think that Vince wanted someone to just come and flip around the ring. That was not what Ultimo Dragon was about.  He did fulfill his lifelong dream of wrestling at WrestleMania, despite falling in the process. I just remember him walking to the ring with about a baker’s dozen belts hanging from any part of his body they could find. I think that if he didn’t have an arm injury that led to nerve damage he would be on a higher place on this list.

2. Jushin Thunder Liger

I have said this before, so I am not going to go into much detail again, but the first match I ever saw was Jushin Thunder Liger vs Brian Pillman live on the first episode of WCW Monday Nitro. This is the only match I remember and it got me hooked on professional wrestling. Jushin Thunder Liger is the Kane of the Cruiserweights in the terms of longevity. Coming from Japan, Jushin Thunder Liger was the first Cruiserweight wrestler to obtain Global popularity. He ushered in the Cruiserweight Era to America. He has been wrestling since the mid 80’s and at 52 he is still going strong today. He even showed up at NXT in 2015 to defeat Tyler Breeze. He has won championships all over the world, but to me his biggest championship accomplishment is winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship 11 times. That is nearly double of the second most reigns of Tiger Mask who has respectfully won the prestigious title six times.

Honorable Mention:

Super Calo, LA Parka, Blitzkrieg,and Shark Boy

Now that we have our housekeeping finished let’s get to the point…

1. Rey Mysterio

I am going to go on a limb and assume most of you saw this coming. No other cruiserweight had the popularity that Rey Mysterio had. This is for good reason. He was always the most well rounded Cruiserweight. He could have a great match with Billy Kidman then turn around and work a good match with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. He always put everything on the line. He was so small, but could do anything that (and more) than Jushin Thunder Liger. If it wasn’t for Rey Mysterio I doubt that the Luchador style would have ever reached the point of popularity that it did in the 90’s. He not only won cruiserweight championships, but went to win the World Title in WWE as well.  No other Cruiserweight will ever be able to make the impact that Rey Mysterio has made to the Cruiserweight division and Professional Wrestling as a whole.

Did I miss any of your favorite masked Cruiserweights of WCW?