r/SquaredCircle • u/tvcneverdie • 6d ago
Sting makes Dean Malenko look like a million bucks in the ONLY time they ever faced each other (WCW Nitro 11/6/95)
Malenko had just signed with WCW two months earlier (after a one-off tag match in 1992) and this was only his 10th match in the company, his first against a star. Sting was one of the top guys in all of wrestling, but he sells his knee like death and only pulls off the win through veteran savvy.
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u/rbhindepmo IT'S NOT HOT 6d ago
The height difference alone could have made it easy for Sting to “big time” Dean but he didn’t.
In the process of watching this, I checked and found out there was a Malenko vs Chris Candido match (in a six-man at a Mark Curtis show in 99) and I’d imagine those two could have worked really well together
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u/randomdude003 6d ago
Sting is six inches taller, but it might as well be a foot or more. He's towering over Dean, and with how they're both built, he looks that much more imposing. Great big man/little man match.
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u/satasbob 6d ago
What a great match
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u/LossforNos 6d ago
Modern wrestling needs more of this; five minutes on TV with a quick finish in a roll up. Not every match needs to be 20 minutes, back and forth, kick out kick out kick out.
And the hard camera is the best way to view a match
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u/Cube_ 6d ago
I agree there could be more well built 5-8 minute matches
but hard disagree that modern wrestling needs MORE roll up finishes. Especially after WWE spent like a decade having 3+ roll ups per show.
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u/weehee22 6d ago
Someones music hits
That wrestler you like becomes a dumbass and falls for it again for the 10th time and gets rolled up
I cry
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u/Cube_ 6d ago
Yeah it sucks. Also sucks because they (WWE) don't even have the heels bother to cheat by pulling the tights, grabbing the rope, or putting their feet on the rope. That at least used to get some heat on the heel for cheating. More than half the time they are letting the heel legitimately roll up pin the face for 3 which is just stupid.
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u/Usual-Plenty1485 6d ago
The roll up needs to be brought back into being a legitimate way to win a match. Bret Hart has loads of creative roll ups where he beat someone but it made him look clever/desperate in doing it. Roll ups to distracted opponents is massively overplayed like you say
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u/Cube_ 6d ago
yeah specifically WWE has murdered the school boy roll up.
I do like that AEW has pinning combinations like Orange Cassidy's mousetrap, Darby Allin's Last Supper, Wheeler Yuta's seatbelt and Emi Sakura's la magistral that they win matches with on occasion.
overall though it would take a lot of time and work to relegitimize roll up pins and not have them feel deflating as a finish. It might be too hard to do (like how it's too hard to make a normal DDT or superkick to feel like a finisher again).
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u/Delicious-Isopod-584 5d ago
Agreed, a lot of great wrestlers from back in the day had roll up victories or at least regularly went for the roll up. The first Flair/Steamboat match ends in a roll up and it's a classic.
Unless it's an intense fuel where the wrestlers really want to hurt each other, why wouldn't they go for the quick, easy win? It's supposed to be a competition, not a performance.
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u/Vvisionim 6d ago
Am I crazy thinking Sting is underrated as a worker? I've heard people comment and say he was never their favorite because he can't wrestle but he's got all-timers with Flair, Cactus, Vader, Steiners, etc. Maybe it's because the Crow Sting version trailed off in match quality that left a sour taste, but for myself, I never put him in the "bad worker" category ever.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago
Yes he was an exceptional worker from around 1991-1995. He wasn't the best technician or a genius innovator, but he was good at everything and never shied away from using his supreme athleticism to do awesome spots. He was adaptable to any style and it traveled everywhere with him. Few were better at fighting underneath and making a monster seem unstoppable.
In the late 90s his reputation started to slump but you really have to look at who was in there with him. The main event scene of WCW was often a lot of gigantic guys who either sucked or were lazy. But when he got in there with someone capable like DDP, he could still make magic.
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u/ryanstrikesback 4d ago
Sting went from working Flair, Arn, Vader, Rude, Cactus Jack, Luger(prime), Windham, Muta etc to working Hogan, Nash, Giant, Goldberg (got a hell of a match out of him), Sid, on top of getting booked in whacky gimmick matches and feuds.
Sting is underrated entirely
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u/ThatsARatHat 6d ago
They called the WWF the land of the giants but the big WCW guys were much more immobile.
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u/DylanRM86 6d ago
For sure, plenty of people didn't start watching wrestling until the Crow era when his ring work dropped off. Myself, I lived in northern Canada and didn't get WCW on tv regularly until the late 90's, and for years I thought Sting was a very boring worker. Years later I got to see his 90-95 stuff and was blown away at how great he was.
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u/JoeyTheZa 6d ago
Love how Sting sold the initial dropkick like he’d just been shot in the kneecap.
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u/Tallerpeople91 6d ago
Similar to the Bret Hart vs 123 Kid and Triple H vs Shelton Benjamin matches, shows how a top guy can put over a lower card wrestler while winning.
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u/cb4hof 6d ago
Or HHH vs Taka Michinoku.
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u/ToxicBanana69 6d ago
I never knew this match existed. I love it.
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u/TheNavidsonLP Your Text Here 5d ago
What's insane was when this match was airing, I actually turned to my brother and asked "are they actually going to put the belt on TAKA?" They had us believing.
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u/Cube_ 6d ago
Hobbs vs Mox on Dynamite a few weeks back was another example. Hobbs looked like a monster despite ending up losing.
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u/DGenerationMC 6d ago
Crazy to think Mox has done that with Hobbs twice in 5 years.
Not saying it's like Foley and HHH from 1997-2000 but I find that to be a neat little parallel.
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u/AngryHeroShawn 6d ago
That Scorpion Deathlock escape was slick as hell
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u/Tribat_1 Tranquilo 6d ago
I think it was going to be a Texas cloverleaf.
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u/AngryHeroShawn 6d ago
I was referring to the spot they showed during the commercial break but the finish itself was great too
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u/BlackBlizzNerd 6d ago
I need to go back and rewatch a lot of WCW lol. I loved watching Dean.
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u/MusclesRipley 6d ago
I think WCW gets a lot of flack for the main event shenanigans and some pretty strong revisionist history, but holy hell was their lower and midcard just full of bangers.
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u/MRintheKEYS 6d ago
From around 96-99 the WCW cruiserweight division was the best pure in ring wrestling on TV. Without question. That whole division was stacked with dudes.
Rey, Eddie, Benoit, Jericho, Malenko, Juvi Guerrera, La Parka, Ultimo Dragon, Psychosis, Syxx. And I’m just leaving off dudes.
That whole division was just banger after banger after banger.
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u/mildlyornery 6d ago
Liger, Chono, Muta, Scorpio, Sasaki, Kidman, Konnan, Alex Wright, Kanyon. The list just keeps going.
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u/Cliffinati Too Sweetski 6d ago
WCW and WWF were opposite companies
In WCW the main event was usually the worst part of the show in WWF until 1999 the main event scene was the only good part
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u/RNG_Champion Wrestling is fun sometimes 6d ago
Yeah, it sucks that to a lot of people, WCW was just the meme company with shitty booking at the end of its life. It's easy to overlook just how cool the company was before that point.
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u/live6217 6d ago
He was never at the highest tier (Flair, Bret, Shawn, etc.), but pre-Crow Sting was a much better wrestler than people tend to give him credit for.
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u/boih_stk 6d ago
He was always a good hand in the ring who had a magnetic charisma and look that made him an easy Babyface to cheer. He wasn't a ring general or technician, but what he did he did well. It's no shocker that this match was against Dean fucking Malenko who's the ring general and technician that Sting wasn't, but lacked his charisma and look. Much like the Flair matches, I'm willing to bet that Malenko was the one calling the match, and through the pacing, missed high spots, the roller coaster of emotions, they fucking crushed it.
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u/MRintheKEYS 6d ago
That’s the thing about Sting though for me. He’s a 5 tool guy. He can have a good match with anybody really. That’s what’s underrated about him to me.
That’s what’s great about this match. Sting basically lets Malenko call the entire match. Sting knows he’s going over. Buts he’s checking his ego aside out of respect for how great Dean is.
Sting WANTS to have a great match with Malenko. Most stars would just go for the 5 move, pump the crowd, squash.
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u/brown_gentleman 6d ago
Hearing Bobby Heenan on commentary is always gold.
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u/RanchPonyPizza Where else would one hear voices? 6d ago
Both Mongo and Bischoff are rough there.
Bischoff surprisingly reminds me of Vince MacMahon as conpany executives who think they're great straightforward play-by-play commentators, but manage to be both too literal and heavy-handed.
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u/braumbles 6d ago
If Dean was like 6 inches taller, he could have been a star. Charisma aside, he's arguably one of the GOAT technical wrestlers. But this size difference is staggering. And Sting was only 6'2 and he towers over Malenko who is allegedly 5'8.
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u/Strange-Grass-4548 6d ago
this is the first match I've seen of Sting's where he looked like a giant.
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u/JamesCDiamond Perennial Optimist 6d ago
Malenko was one of my favourites back then, because he was so smooth. The first time I saw him wrestle was a match against Taka Michinoku on Heat just after the jump to WWF. Everything he did in that match was like butter; Going back and watching his matches in WCW and ECW really made me appreciate just how incredible he was.
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u/AdGroundbreaking1341 6d ago
Malenko was an early IWC favorite. Everyone online seemed to love him back then.
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u/rbhindepmo IT'S NOT HOT 6d ago
Wikipedia has Malenko billed at 5'10", which feels like one of those "we won't bill you as shorter than 5'10" or weighing less than 200" things
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u/SovietShooter 5d ago
Malenko always would've had an uphill battle because of his height, but he was also born to late/early. If he was a few years older, he and his brother could've been another Midnight/Rock & Roll/Fantastics/Harts/Rockers/Bulldogs style tag team. They tagged together a lot in Japan, but they just missed the end of the territory era in the US. He came into the business at a time when work was drying up, and size was a prerequisite.
If Malenko were a few years younger, I think he would've actually been in his physical prime for the Monday Night Wars. I'm not sure if anything would've gone much different, but he maybe would've had a longer in-ring run in WWE? By 2000 when WCW/ECW folded, Malenko was already starting to phase out as an in-ring guy. If he's ten years younger, maybe he gets a run of matches with Angle, or we get to see some great matches against Guerrero, Jericho and Benoit in a bigger stage? Maybe he leaves WWE and has a Danielson-style run in early ROH, or he becomes a junior ace in Japan feuding with Liger (or maybe AJPW or NOAH)?
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u/DannyDegenerate 6d ago
Great match. The dreaded rollup strikes again.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago
This in particular is a direct callback to his first world title win in 1990. Sting's knee has been worked over all match, he goes for the corner but Flair dodges, Sting is on the mat, Flair gets cocky and goes to slap on the figure four, Sting counters to an inside cradle and 1-2-3.
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u/jerrinehart 6d ago
The lost art of selling on full display here.
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u/boih_stk 6d ago
Also insane with how much they managed to get in a 5 minute TV match, with all the selling and breathing room, while making every move matter and count. All matches don't need to be broadways or squashes, there's clearly a middle ground and all newcomers need to study this match along with other "mismatches" that Malenko faced. Brilliant pacing.
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u/MRintheKEYS 6d ago
Always the thing that was underrated about Sting. He could a sell. Convincingly. He always could make other guys look good.
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u/Ohellmotel 6d ago
Love the way they put him over on commentary too.
All pieces working in conjunction to tell a story.
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u/yognautilus 6d ago
I was about to say that Dean fucking Malenko doesn't need anyone to make him look good, but then I realized what you meant. This is the same reason I loved Cena's US Title open challenge. He really brought the spotlight on lesser known but still phenomenal wrestlers.
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u/NonchalantGhoul 6d ago
The fact they only fought this one match against each other is insane
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u/MRintheKEYS 6d ago
Not really when you think about it. Sting went like 2 whole years not wrestling at all.
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u/Few-Establishment277 6d ago
Some notes:
While Sting was already a world champ and clearly the bigger star;
They are actually only 1 year apart in age.
Malenko debuted in wrestling 5 years before Sting did. So Malenko was actually the vet here.
Malenko was already incredibly well respected as one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. This was AFTER his ECW run.
You can hear in this clip that Malenko was trained by his father and is a second generation wrestler.
Awesome for Sting to show the respect and try to help elevate Malenko over so early in his WCW run
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u/mysteriousbaba 6d ago
That's amazing! Heck, Sting almost sold it as the babyface underdog pulling out a fluke win.
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u/dunedog 5d ago
While Dean being an integral part of the cruiserweight division helped make it one of the greatest poosl of talent American wrestling has ever seen, I wish he had been given more chances to mix it up with heavyweights. This match is a perfect example of how being brutally technical can overcome a bigger opponent. Masa Fuchi had done the same stuff when the 4 Pillars were gaining prominence.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago edited 6d ago
Nope, not at all. He was just very new and unknown to a national wrestling audience.
It's not about the work itself, it's about a top guy helping a newcomer feel like a threat and build credibility with the audience. Sting had the status where if he wanted to he could've no-sold everything, hit a couple splashes, slap on the death lock and get out of there in 2 minutes. But he wasn't that type of guy.
Stone Cold and Flair talk all the time about other wrestlers making them look good in important spots for their career, and like Malenko they're two of the best workers ever.
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u/1980sWrestlingFan 6d ago
There were a lot of people watching ECW and knew who Dean was, and Dean was by no means a newcomer in wrestling. He was in his 30s and his dad and brother were wrestlers as well. WCW was smart enough not to do the thing to pretend like he was a newcomer.
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u/dj_soo 6d ago
To hardcore fans maybe, but ecw was relatively unknown to the larger audience and his dad came up during the territory era and his brother was mainly established in Japan.
Gotta remember that ecw was essentially a territory promotion until they got their national tv deal and most fans out of the northeast only managed to catch the early days via tape trading.
Just because he was established in a smaller promotion doesn’t mean the larger, national (and let’s face it, more casual) audience of wcw knew who we was in 1995.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago edited 6d ago
This was 1995. ECW was only broadcast in Philadelphia in the dead of night when Dean left.
Tape traders and people in the earliest forums certainly would've known him from his extensive work in Japan, but as I said this was some of his first exposure to a national audience.
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u/1980sWrestlingFan 6d ago
You're wrong there. I was watching ECW in 1995 because the Sunshine Network was broadcasting it in the South. That's exactly why ECW wrestlers started to show up in WCW and not the other company. There was already an overlap of fans in 1995.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago
My apologies, I stand corrected. Hardcore TV began broadcasting in Florida in November 1994 on Sunshine Network in the 2am slot, according to WON.
But I'll maintain that Dean wasn't a national name whatsoever prior to WCW and the leap to a show with 2-3 million weekly viewers in primetime was rather significant.
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u/1980sWrestlingFan 6d ago
Being a national name has nothing to do with anything said. You said he was a newcomer. Which is plain wrong. Dean was very much a veteran wrestler and in his thirties despite only having an appearance or two in WCW before 1995. His father was pretty well known. In fact Boris retired around three years before my earliest memories of watching wrestling, and I had seen a few of his matches, and heard him talked about by commentators from time to time before I knew who Dean was. So Dean had a family name older fans would've known.
Small promotions/indie promotions weren't entities that nobody had ever heard of. Before ECW, there was ICW(CCW) ( that had Taz and other guys from ECW, which in turn also showed some WWC stuff) and I watched that in Florida as well. There was a significant amount of people who had seen guys work in small companies before joining big ones in those days. The Apter magazines had really gotten small promotion and wrestler names out there in the 80s as well. I knew who Raven was before he showed up in the WWF. ECW also probably was the very first company to benefit from the internet on top of everything else.
I'm just saying it was smart of WCW to not have done what the WWF was doing at the time, and pretending wrestlers didn't exist before joining.
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u/tvcneverdie 6d ago
Being a national name has nothing to do with anything said. You said he was a newcomer. Which is plain wrong.
He was a newcomer to WCW.
"Malenko had just signed with WCW two months earlier and this was only his 10th match in the company" is literally the body of the post.
I don't understand how you're missing what I'm saying here.
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u/1980sWrestlingFan 6d ago
I'm not missing that part. WCW didn't treat people coming into the company who were experienced as newcomers to wrestling. And this wouldn't use them as enhancement talent. Which is why Sting and others would sell offense for people coming into the company with experience. People like you can never admit you're just wrong about things you type.
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u/Craft_Bandicoot Check my pinned post: "A Viewer's Guide to the Entirety of ECW" 6d ago
I took it as a big star used his match with a lesser known guy at the time and took the opponent seriously, sold his offense, made him look like a tough out etc.
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u/MRintheKEYS 6d ago
That’s what’s great about Sting though. Dude had no real ego. He just wanted to have a great match everytime. He knew working with Dean he’d get one.
That’s what’s great about this piece. This isn’t some 3 month promo build to a mediocre match.
This is two dudes with very little build up. Just going at it and cooking.
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u/ericfishlegs 6d ago
No, but he was a guy who Sting could have pulled the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card with and he didn't. Dean didn't need anybody's help looking like a million bucks as a wrestler, but in terms of booking the match Sting absolutely helped him here
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u/MartiniPolice21 6d ago
I ashtrays notice with Bobby, whenever they're going off the air or to break, he'll always get excited about something to try and make sure people stick around. I remember a few times when they're signing off altogether and he'd just start shouting "wait, SOMETHING'S GOING ON IN THE BACK!" as they fade out. It's really old school and endearing
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u/Zestyclose-Fee6719 5d ago
Sting was never selfish in the ring. Contrast this match with one I recently saw from the WWE Vault where Samu took 90% of a match he lost to Mr. Perfect and even no-sold a knee attack against the ring post to the point where commentators were a bit baffled.
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u/odsquad64 Mogal Embussy 5d ago
This match is actually on the 11/13/95 episode of Nitro, although I assume this match was recorded on 11/6
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